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The human face conveys a wealth of information, including traits, states, and intentions. Just as fundamentally, the face also signals the humanity of a person. In the current research we report two experiments providing evidence that disruptions of configural face encoding affect the temporal dynamics of categorization during attempts to distinguish human from non-human faces. Specifically, the present experiments utilize mouse-tracking and find that face inversion elicits confusion amongst human and non-human categories early in the processing of human faces. This work affords the first examination of how facial inversion affects the dynamic processes underlying categorization of human and non-human faces.
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Inversion Reduces Sensitivity to Complex Emotions in Eye Regions
Inferring humans’ complex emotions is challenging but can be done with surprisingly limited emotion signals, including merely the eyes alone. Here, we test for a role of lower-level perceptual processes involved in such sensitivity using the well-validated Reading the Mind in the Eyes task. Over three experiments, we manipulated configural processing to show that it contributes to sensitivity to complex emotion from human eye regions. Specifically, inversion, a well-established manipulation affecting configural processing, undermined sensitivity to complex emotions in eye regions (Experiments 1-3). Inversion extended to undermine sensitivity to nonmentalistic information from human eye regions (gender; Experiment 2) but did not extend to affect sensitivity to attributes of nonhuman animals (Experiment 3). Taken together, the current findings provide evidence for the novel hypothesis that configural processing facilitates sensitivity to complex emotions conveyed by the eyes via the broader extraction of socially relevant information.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1748461
- PAR ID:
- 10396095
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Social Cognition
- Volume:
- 40
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 0278-016X
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 302 to 315
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2022.40.3.302
