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The perception of time while perceiving dynamic emotional faces

Profile image of Kenneth YuenKenneth Yuen

2015, Frontiers in psychology

Abstract

Emotion plays an essential role in the perception of time such that time is perceived to "fly" when events are enjoyable, while unenjoyable moments are perceived to "drag." Previous studies have reported a time-drag effect when participants are presented with emotional facial expressions, regardless of the emotion presented. This effect can hardly be explained by induced emotion given the heterogeneous nature of emotional expressions. We conducted two experiments (n = 44 and n = 39) to examine the cognitive mechanism underlying this effect by presenting dynamic sequences of emotional expressions to participants. Each sequence started with a particular expression, then morphed to another. The presentation of dynamic facial expressions allows a comparison between the time-drag effect of homogeneous pairs of emotional expressions sharing similar valence and arousal to heterogeneous pairs. Sequences of seven durations (400, 600, 800, 1000, 1200, 1400, 1600 ms) were p...

Figures (10)
Numbers in cells indicate the number of female/male participants. Rows indicate the viewing conditions. TABLE 1 | A summary of participants’ arrangement in the experiments of the present study.
Numbers in cells indicate the number of female/male participants. Rows indicate the viewing conditions. TABLE 1 | A summary of participants’ arrangement in the experiments of the present study.
FIGURE 1 | Illustration of two sets of morphing sequence for a 400 ms stimulus. The upper panel is a morph from a neutral to a happy expression of our female model (a morphing sample from Experiment 1). The lower panel is a morph from disgust to anger of our male model (a morphing sample from Experiment 2).
FIGURE 1 | Illustration of two sets of morphing sequence for a 400 ms stimulus. The upper panel is a morph from a neutral to a happy expression of our female model (a morphing sample from Experiment 1). The lower panel is a morph from disgust to anger of our male model (a morphing sample from Experiment 2).
FIGURE 2 | The psychometric function of the static neutral expression condition in Experiment 1. Each data point is the average proportion across all participants. The dotted line indicates the estimated PSE that participants give 50% of “long” responses.
FIGURE 2 | The psychometric function of the static neutral expression condition in Experiment 1. Each data point is the average proportion across all participants. The dotted line indicates the estimated PSE that participants give 50% of “long” responses.
TABLE 2 | Summary of one-sample t-test (test against 1000 ms) of the conditions tested in Experiment 1. depth by testing the effect of morphing from one emotion to another.
TABLE 2 | Summary of one-sample t-test (test against 1000 ms) of the conditions tested in Experiment 1. depth by testing the effect of morphing from one emotion to another.
TABLE 3 | Summary of one-sample t-test (1000 ms) of the conditions tested in Experiment 2 (Static neutral expression condition is included for a comparison).
TABLE 3 | Summary of one-sample t-test (1000 ms) of the conditions tested in Experiment 2 (Static neutral expression condition is included for a comparison).
FIGURE 4 | Average valence and arousal ratings of the two models’ photographs used in this condition on a seven-point scale rating task Data were obtained from a pilot study to rate the stimuli (n = 20). To further examine how dynamic changes between emotional facial expressions affect the perception of time, we regrouped
FIGURE 4 | Average valence and arousal ratings of the two models’ photographs used in this condition on a seven-point scale rating task Data were obtained from a pilot study to rate the stimuli (n = 20). To further examine how dynamic changes between emotional facial expressions affect the perception of time, we regrouped
TABLE 4 | Comparison of PSE across pairs of dynamic expressions of opposite directions.
TABLE 4 | Comparison of PSE across pairs of dynamic expressions of opposite directions.
FIGURE 5 | A comparison of stimuli involving happy and angry expressions in Experiment 1 and Experiment 2. Error bars indicate + SE. The dotted line indicates the PSE of static neutral expression as the reference. *“p < 0.01 in a t-test comparing the PSEs between this reference and the condition.
FIGURE 5 | A comparison of stimuli involving happy and angry expressions in Experiment 1 and Experiment 2. Error bars indicate + SE. The dotted line indicates the PSE of static neutral expression as the reference. *“p < 0.01 in a t-test comparing the PSEs between this reference and the condition.
FIGURE 6 | Summary of PSEs in Experiment 2. Error bars indicate + SE. The dotted line indicates the PSE of static neutral expression as the reference. **p < 0.01 in a t-test comparing the PSEs between this reference and the condition. Dynamic expressions involving a happy expression also appear to amplify the time-drag effect. A contributing factor could be changes of valence in the dynamic expressions. Among all the pairs in Experiment 2, dynamic expressions involving a happy expression involve a significant valence change (Figure 6). Other pairs of angry, disgusted, and fear expressions involve mainly changes in arousal. A valence change in emotional facial expressions potentially provides more information than arousal change for signaling approach or avoidance related motivation. In contrast, change in the arousal of an individual affects the immediacy of a reaction. For example, both sad and angry expressions hint at an avoidance reaction, though the latter signals an immediate escape while the former only hints at a reconsideration or a change of approach. A recent study shows that stimuli signaling a voluntary go/no-go action induce significant time distortion (Yabe and Goodale, 2015). An evaluation of valence change requires a clear recognition to the emotion at both ends, which is only achievable retrospectively. A notable limitation of our ‘study is the artificial nature of our stimuli. Though, the morphing sequences we used provide better ecological validity than static photographs and
FIGURE 6 | Summary of PSEs in Experiment 2. Error bars indicate + SE. The dotted line indicates the PSE of static neutral expression as the reference. **p < 0.01 in a t-test comparing the PSEs between this reference and the condition. Dynamic expressions involving a happy expression also appear to amplify the time-drag effect. A contributing factor could be changes of valence in the dynamic expressions. Among all the pairs in Experiment 2, dynamic expressions involving a happy expression involve a significant valence change (Figure 6). Other pairs of angry, disgusted, and fear expressions involve mainly changes in arousal. A valence change in emotional facial expressions potentially provides more information than arousal change for signaling approach or avoidance related motivation. In contrast, change in the arousal of an individual affects the immediacy of a reaction. For example, both sad and angry expressions hint at an avoidance reaction, though the latter signals an immediate escape while the former only hints at a reconsideration or a change of approach. A recent study shows that stimuli signaling a voluntary go/no-go action induce significant time distortion (Yabe and Goodale, 2015). An evaluation of valence change requires a clear recognition to the emotion at both ends, which is only achievable retrospectively. A notable limitation of our ‘study is the artificial nature of our stimuli. Though, the morphing sequences we used provide better ecological validity than static photographs and

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