Facing two faces: Defense activation varies as a function of personal relevance

Area of Science:

• Social Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Emotion Recognition

Background:

• Facial expressions convey crucial social information, influencing emotional and behavioral responses.
• The perceived personal relevance of a social situation can modulate the processing of these expressions.
• Understanding how social context affects emotion perception is vital for explaining social behavior.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how the personal relevance of social situations modulates the impact of facial expressions (happy, neutral, angry).
• To examine the role of sender-recipient constellations in processing facial emotions.
• To explore the influence of social anxiety on responses to emotionally charged social cues.

Main Methods:

• A triadic situation was modeled where two faces varied in their orientation relative to the participant (frontal, towards, away).
• Defensive startle modulation and autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity were measured.
• Participants' social anxiety levels were assessed.

Main Results:

• A gradient of personal relevance was confirmed (frontal > towards > away), influencing startle and ANS responses.
• This effect was significantly more pronounced for angry facial expressions.
• Individuals with higher social anxiety exhibited a steeper gradient, indicating heightened sensitivity to social threat cues.

Conclusions:

• Sender-recipient constellations critically modulate the processing of facial emotions in social settings.
• The degree of personal relevance shapes behavioral responses, particularly favoring avoidance in threatening group situations.
• Social anxiety amplifies the impact of social relevance on emotion processing and defensive responses.