Remembering who was where: The influence of threatening emotional expressions on visuo-spatial working memory for faces.

记住谁在哪里：威胁性情绪表达对面部视觉空间工作记忆的影响。

• 批准号: ES/L008912/1
• 负责人: Margaret Jackson
• 金额: $ 26.59万
• 依托单位: University of Aberdeen
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2015 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FL008912%2F1
• 关键词: Remembering; who; was; where; influence

It is fundamental to normal, human social interaction that we are able to read other people's faces and infer from their expression how they are feeling and what their behavioural intention towards us may be. This is particularly important when a person exhibits a facial expression such as anger, which signals hostility or aggression and threatens our physical and emotional welfare. However, facial expressions are fleeting, lasting only between 0.5 and 4 seconds, so it is essential that we clearly and accurately remember who expressed an emotion and where that person is so that we can respond in an appropriate way.To accurately remember who was where at a particular moment in time, we need to preserve this information in a temporary and short-lived memory store called visuo-spatial working memory. Working memory is an essential component of human life. It is used during every goal-related task, behaviour, and thought, and it enables us to keep track of unfolding events from second to second. Without working memory our daily lives would be chaotic and unmanageable, and it is important to understand how this special kind of memory supports social information processing.In the current project I will develop a novel experimental task which investigates how threatening (angry) versus non-threatening (happy, sad, fearful) expressions of emotion influence how precisely we can recall the location of faces using visuo-spatial working memory.Research has shown that angry faces rapidly attract and hold attention better than non-threatening expressions of emotion. There is also evidence that angry expressions improve the accuracy with which we use working memory to recognise a person. However, we currently have a very limited understanding of how facial expressions influence our ability to remember where that person was. Participants will be shown a number of angry and non-threatening faces, and they have to store these faces and their locations in working memory. These 'study' faces will then disappear for a second or so, after which one of them will reappear in a new location but with a neutral expression (now a 'test' face). The disappearance of the initial emotional expression to a neutral pose in the test face thus mirrors the fleeting nature of facial expressions in real life. Using a touch-screen, participants will use their finger to reposition the test face to its original location. The precision with which this response is made will be measured in terms of the distance between the original and recalled locations. Eye movements will also be recorded using an eye-tracking device, in order to examine how much each face is looked at. These eye movement patterns will help determine whether the amount of attention paid to a face and its location relates to how precisely it is subsequently repositioned. The presence of an angry expression is predicted to enhance recall precision for who was where. It is also expected that angry faces will require less attention than non-threatening faces in order to remember their location accurately, due to the presence of threat stimulating the brain to process this information more rapidly and efficiently. In some experiments the amount of time participants are required to hold the faces in mind immediately after their disappearance (called the maintenance phase) will be increased. If memory for angry individuals is stronger and more durable over time, it is expected that recall of who was where will remain more precise for angry than non-threatening faces at extended maintenance intervals. Humans can vary greatly in their sensitivity and response to social signals. Using questionnaires, levels of social skills and anxiety will be assessed in each individual and compared with their memory performance and eye movement patterns in order to determine whether some people respond differently to social threat than others.

对于正常的人类社会互动来说，我们能够阅读他人的面部表情，并从他们的表情中推断他们的感受以及他们对我们的行为意图可能是什么。当一个人表现出愤怒等面部表情时，这一点尤其重要，这表明敌意或侵略性，并威胁到我们的身体和情感福利。然而，面部表情是短暂的，只持续0.5到4秒，所以我们必须清楚准确地记住谁表达了一种情绪，以及那个人在哪里，这样我们才能以适当的方式做出反应。为了准确地记住谁在某个特定的时刻在哪里，我们需要将这些信息保存在一个称为视觉空间工作记忆的临时和短暂的记忆库中。工作记忆是人类生活的重要组成部分。它在每一个与目标相关的任务、行为和思想中都被使用，它使我们能够从一秒到另一秒地跟踪正在发生的事件。如果没有工作记忆，我们的日常生活将是混乱和难以管理的，重要的是要了解这种特殊的记忆如何支持社会信息处理。在目前的项目中，我将开发一个新的实验任务，调查如何威胁（愤怒）与非威胁（快乐，悲伤，恐惧）的情绪表达会影响我们用视觉记忆回忆面孔位置的准确性，空间工作记忆。研究表明，愤怒的面孔比非威胁性的情绪表达更能迅速吸引和保持注意力。还有证据表明，愤怒的表情可以提高我们使用工作记忆识别一个人的准确性。然而，我们目前对面部表情如何影响我们记住那个人在哪里的能力的理解非常有限。参与者将看到一些愤怒和不具威胁性的面孔，他们必须将这些面孔及其位置存储在工作记忆中。这些“研究”的脸会消失一秒钟左右，之后其中一个会重新出现在一个新的位置，但表情是中性的（现在是“测试”脸）。因此，在测试面部中，最初的情感表情消失为中性姿势，反映了真实的生活中面部表情的短暂本质。使用触摸屏，参与者将使用他们的手指重新定位测试面到其原始位置。这种响应的精确度将根据原始位置和调用位置之间的距离来衡量。眼睛的运动也将被记录使用眼动跟踪设备，以检查有多少人看了每一张脸。这些眼球运动模式将有助于确定对面部及其位置的关注程度是否与随后重新定位的精确程度有关。愤怒表情的出现可以提高回忆谁在哪里的准确度。人们还预计，愤怒的面孔比非威胁性的面孔需要更少的注意力才能准确地记住他们的位置，因为威胁的存在刺激大脑更快更有效地处理这些信息。在一些实验中，参与者被要求在面孔消失后立即记住面孔的时间（称为维持阶段）将增加。如果愤怒个体的记忆随着时间的推移而变得更强、更持久，那么在延长的维持时间间隔内，对谁在哪里的回忆将比对非威胁性面孔的回忆更准确。人类对社会信号的敏感性和反应可能差异很大。通过问卷调查，将评估每个人的社交技能和焦虑水平，并与他们的记忆表现和眼动模式进行比较，以确定某些人对社交威胁的反应是否与其他人不同。

项目成果

Remembering who was where: A happy expression advantage for face identity-location binding in working memory.

• DOI: 10.1037/xlm0000522
• 发表时间: 2018-09
• 期刊: Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition
• 作者: Spotorno S;Evans M;Jackson MC
• 通讯作者: Jackson MC

Competition between emotional faces in visuo-spatial working memory

视觉空间工作记忆中情绪面孔之间的竞争

• DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/tbwkp
• 发表时间: 2020
• 作者: Poncet M