title: Ensemble Perception of Dynamic Emotional Groups.
abstract: Crowds of emotional faces are ubiquitous, so much so that the visual system utilizes a specialized mechanism known as ensemble coding to see them. In addition to being proximally close, members of emotional crowds, such as a laughing audience or an angry mob, often behave together. The manner in which crowd members behave-in sync or out of sync-may be critical for understanding their collective affect. Are ensemble mechanisms sensitive to these dynamic properties of groups? Here, observers estimated the average emotion of a crowd of dynamic faces. The members of some crowds changed their expressions synchronously, whereas individuals in other crowds acted asynchronously. Observers perceived the emotion of a synchronous group more precisely than the emotion of an asynchronous crowd or even a single dynamic face. These results demonstrate that ensemble representation is particularly sensitive to coordinated behavior, and they suggest that shared behavior is critical for understanding emotion in groups.
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Psychology, University of Denver.
authors.forename: Elric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Elias
authors.affiliation: 2 Department of Psychology, Hamilton University.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dyer
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Psychology, University of Denver.
authors.forename: Timothy D
authors.initials: TD
authors.lastname: Sweeny
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D000066499:Facial Recognition / Q000502:physiology*; D006126:Group Processes; D006801:Humans; D012938:Social Perception
keywords: emotion; ensemble coding; open data; social perception; summary perception; visual perception