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，这是正常的人类社交互动的基础。当一个人表现出愤怒等面部表情时，这一点尤其重要，这种表情表示敌意或攻击性，并威胁到我们的身体和情感福祉。然而，面部表情是转瞬即逝的，只持续0.5到4秒，所以我们必须清楚而准确地记住谁表达了情绪，那个人在哪里，这样我们才能以适当的方式做出反应。为了准确地记住在特定时刻谁在哪里，我们需要将这些信息保存在一种名为视觉空间工作记忆的临时和短暂的记忆存储中。工作记忆是人类生活中必不可少的组成部分。它被用在每一项与目标相关的任务、行为和思想中，它使我们能够从一秒到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不可管理的，了解这种特殊的记忆如何支持社会信息处理是很重要的。在当前的项目中，我将开发一个新的实验任务，调查威胁性(愤怒)和非威胁性(高兴、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度。研究表明，愤怒的脸比非威胁性的情绪表达更能迅速吸引并更好地保持注意力。也有证据表明，愤怒的表情提高了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了解非常有限。参与者将看到一些愤怒的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“学习”脸会消失一秒钟左右，之后其中一张脸会重新出现在一个新的位置，但表情中性(现在是一张“测试”脸)。在测试脸中，最初的情感表情消失到中性姿势，从而反映了现实生活中面部表情的转瞬即逝的本质。使用触摸屏，参与者将使用他们的手指将测试脸重新定位到其原始位置。做出这一反应的精确度将根据原始地点和召回地点之间的距离来衡量。眼球运动也将使用眼球跟踪设备进行记录，以检查每张脸被看了多少次。这些眼球运动模式将有助于确定人们对一张脸的关注度及其位置是否与随后重新定位的精确度有关。愤怒表情的出现预计会提高对谁在哪里的回忆的精确度。人们还预计，愤怒的面孔比没有威胁的面孔需要更少的注意力才能准确地记住它们的位置，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，参与者在面孔消失后立即记住这些面孔的时间会增加(称为维护阶段)。如果愤怒的人随着时间的推移记忆力更强、更持久，那么在延长的维持时间间隔内，愤怒的面孔对谁在哪里的回忆将比对非威胁面孔的回忆更准确。人类对社会信号的敏感度和反应可能会有很大差异。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.