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

我们能够读懂别人的脸，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，这是正常的人类社会互动的基础。当一个人表现出愤怒等面部表情时，这一点尤为重要，因为这表明敌意或攻击性，并威胁到我们的身心健康。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是谁表达了一种情绪，以及那个人在哪里，这样我们才能以适当的方式做出反应。为了准确地记住在某个特定时刻谁在哪里，我们需要将这些信息保存在一种临时的、短暂的记忆存储中，这种记忆被称为视觉空间工作记忆。工作记忆是人类生活的重要组成部分。在每一个与目标相关的任务、行为和想法中都会用到它，它使我们能够逐秒跟踪正在发生的事件。如果没有工作记忆，我们的日常生活将会变得混乱和难以管理，了解这种特殊的记忆如何支持社会信息处理是很重要的。在目前的项目中，我将开发一个新的实验任务，研究威胁性（愤怒）与非威胁性（快乐、悲伤、恐惧）的情绪表达如何影响我们使用视觉空间工作记忆回忆面孔位置的精确程度。研究表明，愤怒的表情比不具威胁性的表情更能迅速吸引和保持注意力。也有证据表明，愤怒的表情可以提高我们使用工作记忆来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。研究人员将向参与者展示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。然后这些“研究”脸会消失一秒钟左右，之后其中一张会在一个新的位置重新出现，但带着中性的表情（现在是一张“测试”脸）。因此，测试面部表情从最初的情绪表情到中性姿势的消失反映了现实生活中面部表情的短暂性。使用触摸屏，参与者将用手指将测试脸重新定位到原始位置。做出这种反应的精确度将根据原始位置和回忆位置之间的距离来衡量。眼球运动也将被眼动追踪设备记录下来，以检测人们对每张脸的注视程度。这些眼球运动模式将有助于确定对一张脸的关注程度及其位置是否与随后重新定位的精确程度有关。据预测，愤怒表情的出现可以提高回忆谁在哪里的准确性。人们还预计，为了准确记住自己的位置，愤怒的脸比没有威胁的脸需要更少的注意力，因为威胁的存在会刺激大脑更快、更有效地处理这些信息。在一些实验中，参与者需要在面孔消失后立即记住它们的时间（称为维持阶段）将会增加。如果对愤怒的人的记忆随着时间的推移变得更强、更持久，那么在较长的维持时间间隔内，对愤怒的人在哪里的记忆比对没有威胁的人的记忆更准确。人类对社会信号的敏感度和反应差异很大。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球运动模式进行比较，以确定一些人对社交威胁的反应是否与其他人不同。

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.