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Featural shift in explanation-biased memory for emotional faces
1Department of Psychology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. jhalbers@psy.otago.ac.nz
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
|January 6, 2005
Summary
Explaining emotions changes how we remember faces. Verbal explanations focus attention on facial features, making memory biased towards the explanation, a phenomenon termed the "featural shift".
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Social Psychology
- Psycholinguistics
Background:
- Previous research indicated that explanations of emotional states bias memory for facial expressions.
- A proposed two-stage model suggested verbal explanations shift attention to facial features, hindering holistic processing and enabling conceptual reintegration.
Purpose of the Study:
- To test the "featural shift" hypothesis regarding the effect of verbal explanations on facial emotion memory.
- To examine how verbal explanations influence attention to facial features versus configural information.
Main Methods:
- Four experiments were conducted to investigate memory for faces and facial features after verbal explanation.
- Participants' memory for specific features and overall facial configurations was assessed.
Main Results:
- Evidence supported the "featural shift" hypothesis.
- Participants who provided verbal explanations showed enhanced memory for individual facial features compared to controls.
- The biasing effect of explanation was weaker for facial features and altered faces, suggesting a shift in processing.
Conclusions:
- Verbal explanations alter facial emotion perception and memory by inducing a "featural shift" in attention.
- Findings support the interaction between explicit verbal processing and implicit facial processing in emotion perception.