title: Perceived facial expressions of emotion as motivational incentives: evidence from a differential implicit learning paradigm.
abstract: Participants (N = 216) were administered a differential implicit learning task during which they were trained and tested on 3 maximally distinct 2nd-order visuomotor sequences, with sequence color serving as discriminative stimulus. During training, 1 sequence each was followed by an emotional face, a neutral face, and no face, using backward masking. Emotion (joy, surprise, anger), face gender, and exposure duration (12 ms, 209 ms) were varied between participants; implicit motives were assessed with a picture-story exercise. For power-motivated individuals, low-dominance facial expressions enhanced and high-dominance expressions impaired learning. For affiliation-motivated individuals, learning was impaired in the context of hostile faces. These findings did not depend on explicit learning of fixed sequences or on awareness of sequence-face contingencies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1109, USA. oschult@umich.edu
authors.forename: Oliver C
authors.initials: OC
authors.lastname: Schultheiss
authors.forename: Joyce S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Pang
authors.forename: Cynthia M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Torges
authors.forename: Michelle M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Wirth
authors.forename: Wendy
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Treynor
authors.forename: Douglas
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Derryberry
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal; D001245:Association Learning; D001364:Awareness; D003118:Color Perception; D003216:Conditioning, Operant; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D004291:Dominance-Subordination; D004644:Emotions; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006791:Hostility; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011209:Power, Psychological; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012691:Serial Learning