title: Exploring cross-task compatibility in perceiving and producing facial expressions using electromyography.
abstract: Using a dual-task methodology we examined the interaction of perceiving and producing facial expressions. In one task, participants were asked to produce a smile or a frown (Task 2) in response to a tone stimulus. This auditory-facial task was embedded in a dual-task context, where the other task (Task 1) required a manual response to visual face stimuli (visual-manual task). These face stimuli showed facial expressions that were either compatible or incompatible to the to-be-produced facial expression. Both reaction times and error rates (measured by facial electromyography) revealed a robust stimulus-response compatibility effect across tasks, suggesting that perceived social actions automatically activate corresponding actions even if perceived and produced actions belong to different tasks. The dual-task nature of this compatibility effect further testifies that encoding of facial expressions is highly automatic.
authors: Institute of Psychology I, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany. ellen.otte@psych.rwth-aachen.de
authors: Ellen
authors: E
authors: Otte
authors: Kerstin
authors: K
authors: Jost
authors: Ute
authors: U
authors: Habel
authors: Iring
authors: I
authors: Koch
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D004576:Electromyography; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D012938:Social Perception; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*