Dataset Information

Context sensitivity in the detection of changes in facial emotion.

ABSTRACT: In social contexts, reading subtle changes in others' facial expressions is a crucial communication skill. To measure this ability, we developed an expression-change detection task, wherein a series of pictures of changes in an individual's facial expressions within contextual scenes were presented. The results demonstrated that the detection of subtle changes was highly sensitive to contextual stimuli. That is, participants identified the direction of facial-expression changes more accurately and more quickly when they were 'appropriate'-consistent with the valence of the contextual stimulus change-than when they were 'inappropriate'. Moreover, individual differences in sensitivity to contextual stimuli were correlated with scores on the Toronto Alexithymia Scale, a commonly used measure of alexithymia tendencies. These results suggest that the current behavioural task might facilitate investigations of the role of context in human social cognition.

SUBMITTER: Yamashita Y

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4904217 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Context sensitivity in the detection of changes in facial emotion.

Yamashita Yuichi Y Fujimura Tomomi T Katahira Kentaro K Honda Manabu M Okada Masato M Okanoya Kazuo K

Scientific reports 20160613

In social contexts, reading subtle changes in others' facial expressions is a crucial communication skill. To measure this ability, we developed an expression-change detection task, wherein a series of pictures of changes in an individual's facial expressions within contextual scenes were presented. The results demonstrated that the detection of subtle changes was highly sensitive to contextual stimuli. That is, participants identified the direction of facial-expression changes more accurately a ...[more]

PMID: 27291099

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Project description:Individuals with schizophrenia show deficits both in facial emotion recognition and context processing (Kohler, C.G., Walker, J.B., Martin, E.A., Healey, K.M., Moberg, P.J., 2010. Facial emotion perception in schizophrenia: a meta-analytic review. Schizophr. Bull. 36, 1009-1019). Recent evidence suggests context information can affect facial emotion recognition (Aviezer, H., Bentin, S., Hassin, R.R., Meschino, W.S., Kennedy, J., Grewal, S., Esmail, S., Cohen, S., Moscovitch, M., 2009. Not on the face alone: perception of contextualized face expressions in Huntington's disease. Brain 132, 1633-1644). Thus, individuals with schizophrenia may have deficits in facial emotion processing, at least in part, due to impairments in processing context information (Green, M.J., Waldron, J.H., Coltheart, M., 2007. Emotional context processing is impaired in schizophrenia. Cogn. Neuropsychiatry 12, 259-280.). We used a novel experimental task, the Emotion Context Processing Task (ECPT) to examine the influences of emotional context (IAPS pictures) on the processing of subtle surprised faces in schizophrenia. One of the task conditions included a manipulation designed to determine whether enhancing attention to the context (by requiring a categorization judgment on the context pictures) would facilitate the influence of context on facial emotion processing in schizophrenia. In addition, we tested whether deficits on a non-social context processing would predict deficits in the influence of context on facial emotion processing in schizophrenia. We administered the Dot Probe Expectancy Task (a non-social context processing task) and the ECPT to individuals with schizophrenia (n=35) and healthy controls (n=32). Individuals with schizophrenia showed an intact influence of context information on facial emotion recognition. The manipulation designed to enhance attention to emotional context reduced the effect of context for both groups. In schizophrenia, better processing of non-social context was associated with a stronger influence of context on valence ratings of facial expressions in the negative context condition. These results suggest in schizophrenia, similar mechanisms may influence the processing of context for both social and non-social information.

Dataset Information

Context sensitivity in the detection of changes in facial emotion.

Publications

Context sensitivity in the detection of changes in facial emotion.

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