Browsing by Subject "Face perception"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Facial display when alone: An experiment which contrasts the views of Paul Ekman and Alan Fridlund
    (1989) Chen, Michael Anthony; Perloe, Sidney
    In order to test the merits of Paul Ekman's neurocultural (1975) versus Alan Fridlund's Behavioral-Ecology (in press) views of facial expression, an experiment was done to test the affects of what Fridlund calls "imaginary interactants" on subjects' responses (smiling and laughing) to humorous stimuli (clips from well known comedies film) which the subjects watched while alone. 50 male subjects were randomly assigned to the two experimental groups: anticipated interaction (told that they would be talking about the tape with someone else) and completely alone. Neither group knew that watching the clips was the actual experimental task. There was also a post-watching interview which was designed to determine the amount of thought about "potential imagined interactants" which took place in the minds of the subjects. The results showed no difference between the two groups' smiling and laughing. The data were then divided on the basis of subjects' responses to certain interview questions. ANOVAs were run based on the interview data and revealed that subjects laugh with high intensity most when they are not thinking about particular other people (p<.Ol). This-finding is in direct conflict with Fridlund's theory. It was also discovered, however, that when people wished for others' presence they laughed and smiled more (p<.Ol). The results are discussed in detail, and seem to support adoption of an Ekmanian perspective, but the author calls for more work in the area.
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    Inclusion/Exclusion Model Applied to Facial Stereotypes
    (1999) Greer, Christine E.; Perloe, Sidney
    This study investigates the effects of facial stereotypes on subjects' judgments of a target person using Schwarz and Bless's inclusion/exclusion model (1992). This model states that the inclusion of a contextual stimulus in a target category results in assimilation toward the contextual stimulus and that the exclusion of a stimulus from a target category yields contrast away from the contextual stimulus. Subjects were presented with three ambiguous behavior descriptions each paired with either a baby, mature, or neutral-faced target female. Subjects then were asked to judge the target female along certain personality-trait dimensions relevant to the facial stereotypes. The hypothesis for this study was that by including the female target's behavior as part of her personality, assimilation to the facial stereotype would occur, and that by excluding the target's behavior from her personality, contrast against the facial stereotype would result. Our results did not show significant effects that supported this hypothesis; however we did find significant main effects for face type and story condition.
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    Social Categorization and Intergroup Bias in Affective Facial Memory
    (2012) Stillwell, Amelia; Boltz, Marilyn
    The purpose of the present research was to investigate face recognition in the context of Social Categorization Theory (Hugenberg & Sacco, 2008), and the potential impact of in-group positivity/out-group negativity biases. Relying on a minimal group paradigm, two studies were conducted. Experiment I investigated whether in-/out-group biases manifest in affective facial memory by comparing participants' recognition of in- and out-group members displaying positive, neutral, and negative facial affect. Results showed moderate support for a Cross-Group Effect, such that performance on the recognition task was better for in-group than out-group members. However, there was no evidence to support the prediction that participants would show better memory for positive in-group and negative out-group faces. Experiment II investigated the role of distortions in these memory biases. However, due to lost data, no conclusions could be drawn regarding the results of this experiment. Potential explanations for the unusual results of Experiment I and recommendations for future research are discussed.
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    The Voice, A Truer Window to the Soul? : The Effects of Face/Voice Incongruency on Impression Formation
    (2006) Vandersall, Ellen J.; Boltz, Marilyn
    This study examined whether impression formation is influenced by the congruency of facial and vocal information. Levels of attractiveness and maturity were manipulated to create 32 congruent or incongruent pairings on the computer. Forty undergraduate participants were presented with a 17-second clip of a face/voice pairing and asked to make 6 perceptual judgments on the traits of trustworthiness, health, behavioral consistency, likeability, emotional stability, and intelligence. Participants also rated the congruency of each pairing after completing the set of perceptual judgment tasks. It was hypothesized that incongruent pairings would receive less favorable personality assessment than the congruent pairings. This prediction was in fact observed for the attractiveness dimension but not the maturity one. In addition, the voice had a greater impact than the face on all traits except health. These findings are discussed in terms of their relation to the theories of symmetry, averageness, and expectancy confirmation with respect to congruency manipulations.
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