title: Featural processing in recognition of emotional facial expressions.
abstract: The present study aimed to clarify the role played by the eye/brow and mouth areas in the recognition of the six basic emotions. In Experiment 1, accuracy was examined while participants viewed partial and full facial expressions; in Experiment 2, participants viewed full facial expressions while their eye movements were recorded. Recognition rates were consistent with previous research: happiness was highest and fear was lowest. The mouth and eye/brow areas were not equally important for the recognition of all emotions. More precisely, while the mouth was revealed to be important in the recognition of happiness and the eye/brow area of sadness, results are not as consistent for the other emotions. In Experiment 2, consistent with previous studies, the eyes/brows were fixated for longer periods than the mouth for all emotions. Again, variations occurred as a function of the emotions, the mouth having an important role in happiness and the eyes/brows in sadness. The general pattern of results for the other four emotions was inconsistent between the experiments as well as across different measures. The complexity of the results suggests that the recognition process of emotional facial expressions cannot be reduced to a simple feature processing or holistic processing for all emotions.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Laurentian University , Sudbury , Ontario , Canada.
authors.forename: Olivia
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Beaudry
authors.forename: Annie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Roy-Charland
authors.forename: Melanie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Perron
authors.forename: Isabelle
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Cormier
authors.forename: Roxane
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tapp
mesh_terms: D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D005133:Eye Movements; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D055815:Young Adult