Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-rbxfs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-07T23:15:53.619Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Smile Radiates Outwards and Biases the Eye Expression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2013

Andrés Fernández-Martín ,
Aida Gutiérrez-García  and
Manuel G. Calvo
Andrés Fernández-Martín*
Affiliation:
Universidad de La Laguna (Spain)
Aida Gutiérrez-García
Affiliation:
Complejo Asistencial Universitario de Burgos (Spain)
Manuel G. Calvo
Affiliation:
Universidad de La Laguna (Spain)
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Andrés Fernández-Martín. Departamento de Psicología Cognitiva. Universidad de La Laguna. 38205. Tenerife (Spain). E- mail: afdezm@ull.es
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study investigated how extrafoveally seen smiles influence the viewers’ perception of non-happy eyes in a face. A smiling mouth appeared in composite faces with incongruent (angry, fearful, neutral, etc.) eyes, thus producing blended expressions, or they appeared in intact faces with genuine expressions. Overt attention to the eye region was spatially cued, foveal vision of the mouth was blocked by gaze-contingent masking, and the distance between the eyes and the mouth was varied. Participants evaluated whether the eyes were happy or not. Results indicated that the same non-happy eyes were more likely to be judged as happy, and more slowly to be judged as not happy, in presence more than in absence of a smile. As (a) the smiling mouth was highly salient regardless of type of eyes, (b) the influence on the eyes increased gradually as a function of eye-mouth proximity, and (c) the effect occurred in the absence of fixations on the mouth, we conclude that a salient smile radiates outwards to other face regions through a projection mechanism, thus making the eye expression look happy.

Keywords

facial expressionsmilesaliencyconfiguralrecognition

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 16 , 2013 , E53
Copyright
Copyright © Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Madrid 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

This research was supported by Grant PSI2009-07245 from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, and the Agencia Canaria de Investigación, Innovación y Sociedad de la Información (Neurocog Project), and the European Regional Development Funds.

References

Aguado, L., García-Gutiérrez, A., & Serrano-Pedraza, I. (2009). Symmetrical interaction of sex and expression in face classification tasks. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 71, 9–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/APP.71.1.9 Google Scholar
Ambadar, Z., Cohn, J. F., & Reed, L. I. (2009). All smiles are not created equal: Morphology and timing of smiles perceived as amused, polite, and embarrassed/nervous. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 33, 17–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10919-008-0059-5 Google Scholar
Bimler, D., & Paramei, G. (2006). Facial-expression affective attributes and their configural correlates: Components and categories. The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 9, 19–31.Google Scholar
Calder, A. J., & Jansen, J. (2005). Configural coding of facial expressions: The impact of inversion and photographic negative. Visual Cognition, 12, 495–518. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13506280444000418 Google Scholar
Calder, A. J., Young, A. W., Keane, J., & Dean, M. (2000). Configural information in facial expression perception. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 26, 527–551. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037//0096-1523.26.2.527 Google ScholarPubMed
Calvo, M. G., Fernández-Martín, A., & Nummenmaa, L. (2013). A smile biases the recognition of eye expressions: Configural projection from a salient mouth. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 66, 1159–1181. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2012.732586 Google Scholar
Calvo, M. G., & Lundqvist, D. (2008). Facial expressions of emotion (KDEF): Identification under different display-duration conditions. Behavior Research Methods, 40, 109–115. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BRM.40.1.109 Google Scholar
Calvo, M. G., & Marrero, H. (2009). Visual search of emotional faces: The role of affective content and featural distinctiveness. Cognition and Emotion, 23, 782–806. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02699930802151654 Google Scholar
Calvo, M. G., & Nummenmaa, L. (2007). Processing of unattended emotional visual scenes. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 136, 347–369. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.136.3.347 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Calvo, M. G., & Nummenmaa, L. (2008). Detection of emotional faces: Salient physical features guide effective visual search. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 137, 471–494. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0012771 Google Scholar
Calvo, M. G., & Nummenmaa, L. (2009). Eye-movement assessment of the time course in facial expression recognition: Neurophysiological implications. Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience, 9, 398–411. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/CABN.9.4.398 Google Scholar
Calvo, M. G., & Nummenmaa, L. (2011). Time course discrimination between emotional facial expressions: The role of visual saliency. Vision Research, 51, 1751–1759. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2011.06.001 Google Scholar
Calvo, M. G., Nummenmaa, L., & Avero, P. (2010). Recognition advantage of happy faces in extrafoveal vision: Featural and affective processing. Visual Cognition, 18, 1274–1297. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13506285.2010.481867 Google Scholar
Ekman, P. (1994). Strong evidence for universals in facial expressions: A reply to Russell’s mistaken critique. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 268–287. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037//0033-2909.115.2.268 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1978). Facial action coding system: A technique for the measurement of facial movement. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.Google Scholar
Eyelink, II (2004). Apparatus and software. Mississauga, Canada: SR Research.Google Scholar
Fernández-Martín, A., Avero, P., & Gutiérrez-Calvo, M. (2012). Una sonrisa en la boca hace que los ojos parezcan alegres [A smiling mouth makes non-happy eyes look happy]. Escritos de Psicología, 5, 25–33.Google Scholar
Goren, D., & Wilson, H. R. (2006). Quantifying facial expression recognition across viewing conditions. Vision Research, 46, 1253–1262. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2005.10.028 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Itti, L., & Koch, C. (2000). A saliency-based search mechanism for overt and covert shifts of visual attention. Vision Research, 40, 1489–1506. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0042-6989(99)00163-7 Google Scholar
Johnston, L., Miles, L., & Macrae, C. (2010). Why are you smiling at me? Social functions of enjoyment and non-enjoyment smiles. British Journal of Social Psychology, 49, 107–127. http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/014466609X412476 Google Scholar
Kohler, C. G., Turner, T., Stolar, N. M., Bilker, W. B., Brensinger, C. M., Gur, R. E., & Gur, R. C. (2004). Differences in facial expressions of four universal emotions. Psychiatry Research, 128, 235–244. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2004.07.003 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krumhuber, E. G., & Manstead, A. S. R. (2009). Can Duchenne smiles be feigned? New evidence on felt and false smiles. Emotion, 9, 807–820. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0017844 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leppänen, J., & Hietanen, J. K. (2007). Is there more in a happy face than just a big smile? Visual Cognition, 15, 468–490. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13506280600765333 Google Scholar
Loughead, J., Gur, R. C., Elliott, M., & Gur, R. E. (2008). Neural circuitry for accurate identification of facial emotions. Brain Research, 1194, 37–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2007.10.105 Google Scholar
Lundqvist, D., Flykt, A., & Öhman, A. (1998). The Karolinska directed emotional faces – KDEF. CD-ROM from department of clinical neuroscience, psychology section, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.Google Scholar
McKone, E. (2009). Holistic processing for faces operates over a wide range of sizes but is strongest at identification rather than conversational distances. Vision Research, 49, 268–283. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2008.10.020 Google Scholar
Nusseck, M., Cunningham, D. V., Wallraven, C., & Bülthoff, H. H. (2008). The contribution of different facial regions to the recognition of conversational expressions. Journal of Vision, 8, 1–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1167/8.8.1 Google Scholar
Palermo, R., & Coltheart, M. (2004). Photographs of facial expression: Accuracy, response times, and ratings of intensity. Behavior Research Methods, 36, 634–638. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03206544 Google Scholar
Richler, J. J., Mack, M. L., Gauthier, I., & Palmieri, T. J. (2009). Holistic processing of faces happens at a glance. Vision Research, 49, 2856–2861. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2009.08.025 Google Scholar
Tanaka, J. W., Kaiser, M., Butler, S., & Le Grand, R. (2012). Mixed emotions: Holistic and analytic perception of facial expressions. Cognition and Emotion, 26, 961–977. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2011.630933 Google Scholar
Torralba, A., Oliva, A., Castelhano, M. S., & Henderson, J. (2006). Contextual guidance of eye movements in real-world scenes: The role of global features in object search. Psychological Review, 113, 766–786. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.113.4.766 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tottenham, N., Tanaka, J. W., Leon, A. C., McCarry, T., Nurse, M., Hare, T. A., … & Nelson, C. (2009). The NimStim set of facial expressions: Judgments from untrained research participants. Psychiatry Research, 168, 242–249. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2008.05.006 Google Scholar
Walther, D., & Koch, C. (2006). Modeling attention to salient proto-objects. Neural Networks, 19, 1395–1407.Google Scholar
Wandell, B. A. (1995). Foundations of vision. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Press.Google Scholar