Bimler, David L. and Paramei, Galina V. (2023) Gauging response time distributions to examine the effect of facial expression inversion. Frontiers in Psychology, 14. ISSN 1664-1078
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Abstract
Introduction: We used images of facial expressions (FEs) of emotion in a speeded Same/Different task to examine (i) distributional characteristics of response times (RTs) in relation to inter-stimulus similarity and (ii) the impact of inversion on FE processing.
Methods: Stimuli were seven emotion prototypes, posed by one male and one female, and eight intermediate morphs. Image pairs (N = 225) were presented for 500 ms, upright or inverted, in a block design, each 100 times.
Results: For both upright and inverted FEs, RTs were a non-monotonic function: median values were longest for stimulus pairs of intermediate similarity, decreasing for both more-dissimilar and more-similar pairs. RTs of “Same” and “Different” judgments followed ex-Gaussian distributions. The non-monotonicity is interpreted within a dual-process decision model framework as reflecting the infrequency of identical pairs, shifting the balance between the Same and Different processes. The effect of stimulus inversion was gauged by comparing RT-based multidimensional scaling solutions for the two presentation modes. Solutions for upright and inverted FEs showed little difference, with both displaying some evidence of categorical perception. The same features appeared in hierarchical clustering solutions.
Discussion: This outcome replicates and reinforces the solutions derived from accuracy of “Different” responses reported in our earlier companion paper. We attribute this lack of inversion effect to the brief exposure time, allowing low-level visual processing to dominate Same/Different decisions while elevating early featural analysis, which is insensitive to face orientation but enables initial positive/negative valence categorization of FEs.
| Item Type: | Article |
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| Additional Information and Comments: | Copyright © 2023 Bimler and Paramei. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
| Faculty / Department: | Faculty of Human and Digital Sciences > School of Psychology |
| Depositing User: | Matthew Adams |
| Date Deposited: | 14 Mar 2023 11:55 |
| Last Modified: | 14 Mar 2023 11:55 |
| URI: | https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/3801 |
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