What's in a Face? How Face Gender and Current Affect Influence Perceived Emotion

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Social Neuroscience
• Perception

Background:

• Gender and emotional face perception are extensively studied.
• Previous research indicates gender affects emotion processing.
• The influence of current affective state on face perception is less understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how gender influences emotional face perception.
• To determine if current affective state affects the perception of male and female faces.
• To explore reaction time differences in emotion perception.

Main Methods:

• Participants judged morphed faces (happy to angry) as happy or angry.
• Determined individual emotional neutral points for male and female faces.
• Assessed the correlation between current mood and perceptual neutral points.

Main Results:

• Male faces were perceived as more negative (requiring more happiness to be neutral) than female faces.
• Positive mood correlated with perceiving female faces as happier.
• No significant mood correlation was found for male face perception.
• Slower reaction times were observed for angry male faces compared to angry female faces.

Conclusions:

• A perceptual bias exists, leading to perceiving male faces as more negative.
• Current mood state significantly impacts the perception of female facial affect.
• Gender and affective state interact to shape emotional face perception.