Dario Bombari

Emotion recognition: The role of featural and configural face information

Several studies investigated the role of featural and configural information when processing facial identity. A lot less is known about their contribution to emotion recognition. In this study, we addressed this issue by inducing either a featural or a configural processing strategy (Experiment 1) and by investigating the attentional strategies in response to emotional expressions (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, participants identified emotional expressions in faces that were presented in three different versions (intact, blurred, and scrambled) and in two orientations (upright and inverted). Blurred faces contain mainly configural information, and scrambled faces contain mainly featural information. Inversion is known to selectively hinder configural processing. Analyses of the discriminability measure (A′) and response times (RTs) revealed that configural processing plays a more prominent role in expression recognition than featural processing, but their relative contribution varies depending on the emotion. In Experiment 2, we qualified these differences between emotions by investigating the relative importance of specific features by means of eye movements. Participants had to match intact expressions with the emotional cues that preceded the stimulus. The analysis of eye movements confirmed that the recognition of different emotions rely on different types of information. While the mouth is important for the detection of happiness and fear, the eyes are more relevant for anger, fear, and sadness.

Featural, configural, and holistic face-processing strategies evoke different scan patterns.

In two experiments we investigated the role of eye movements during face processing. In experiment 1, using modified faces with primarily featural (scrambled faces) or configural (blurred faces) information as cue stimuli, we manipulated the way participants processed subsequently presented intact faces. In a sequential same–different task, participants decided whether the identity of an intact test face matched a preceding scrambled or blurred cue face. Analysis of eye movements for test faces showed more interfeatural saccades when they followed a blurred face, and longer gaze duration within the same feature when they followed scrambled faces. In experiment 2, we used a similar paradigm except that test faces were cued by intact faces, low-level blurred stimuli, or second-order scrambled stimuli (features were cut out but maintained their first-order relations). We found that in the intact condition participants performed fewer interfeatural saccades than in low-level blurred condition and had shorter gaze duration than in second-order scrambled condition. Moreover, participants fixated the centre of the test face to grasp the information from the whole face. Our findings suggest a differentiation between featural, configural, and holistic processing strategies, which can be associated with specific patterns of eye movements.

Studying social interactions through immersive virtual environment technology: virtues, pitfalls, and future challenges

The goal of the present review is to explain how immersive virtual environment technology (IVET) can be used for the study of social interactions and how the use of virtual humans in immersive virtual environments can advance research and application in many different fields. Researchers studying individual differences in social interactions are typically interested in keeping the behavior and the appearance of the interaction partner constant across participants. With IVET researchers have full control over the interaction partners, can standardize them while still keeping the simulation realistic. Virtual simulations are valid: growing evidence shows that indeed studies conducted with IVET can replicate some well-known findings of social psychology. Moreover, IVET allows researchers to subtly manipulate characteristics of the environment (e.g., visual cues to prime participants) or of the social partner (e.g., his/her race) to investigate their influences on participants’ behavior and cognition. Furthermore, manipulations that would be difficult or impossible in real life (e.g., changing participants’ height) can be easily obtained with IVET. Beside the advantages for theoretical research, we explore the most recent training and clinical applications of IVET, its integration with other technologies (e.g., social sensing) and future challenges for researchers (e.g., making the communication between virtual humans and participants smoother).

What Was I Thinking? Eye-Tracking Experiments Underscore the Bias that Architecture Exerts on Nuclear Grading in Prostate Cancer

We previously reported that nuclear grade assignment of prostate carcinomas is subject to a cognitive bias induced by the tumor architecture. Here, we asked whether this bias is mediated by the non-conscious selection of nuclei that “match the expectation” induced by the inadvertent glance at the tumor architecture. 20 pathologists were asked to grade nuclei in high power fields of 20 prostate carcinomas displayed on a computer screen. Unknown to the pathologists, each carcinoma was shown twice, once before a background of a low grade, tubule-rich carcinoma and once before the background of a high grade, solid carcinoma. Eye tracking allowed to identify which nuclei the pathologists fixated during the 8 second projection period. For all 20 pathologists, nuclear grade assignment was significantly biased by tumor architecture. Pathologists tended to fixate on bigger, darker, and more irregular nuclei when those were projected before kigh grade, solid carcinomas than before low grade, tubule-rich carcinomas (and vice versa). However, the morphometric differences of the selected nuclei accounted for only 11% of the architecture-induced bias, suggesting that it can only to a small part be explained by the unconscious fixation on nuclei that “match the expectation”. In conclusion, selection of « matching nuclei » represents an unconscious effort to vindicate the gravitation of nuclear grades towards the tumor architecture.

Felt power explains the link between position power and experienced emotions.

The approach/inhibition theory by Keltner, Gruenfeld, and Anderson (2003) predicts that powerful people should feel more positive and less negative emotions. To date, results of studies investigating this prediction are inconsistent. We fill this gap with four studies in which we investigated the role of different conceptualizations of power: felt power and position power. In Study 1, participants were made to feel more or less powerful and we tested how their felt power was related to different emotional states. In Studies 2, 3, and 4, participants were assigned to either a high or a low power role and engaged in an interaction with a virtual human, after which participants reported on how powerful they felt and the emotions they experienced during the interaction. We meta-analytically combined the results of the four studies and found that felt power was positively related to positive emotions (happiness and serenity) and negatively to negative emotions (fear, anger, and sadness), whereas position power did not show any significant overall relation with any of the emotional states. Importantly, felt power mediated the relationship between position power and emotion. In summary, we show that how powerful a person feels in a given social interaction is the driving force linking the person’s position power to his or her emotional states.

Power poses : where do we stand?

As editors, reviewers, and authors, we are very pleased with the output of this Special Issue. We received a robust number of interesting and diverse submissions, and we were very lucky to convince...

Tumor architecture exerts no bias on nuclear grading in breast cancer diagnosis

We recently reported that nuclear grading in prostate cancer is subject to a strong confirmation bias induced by the tumor architecture. We now wondered whether a similar bias governs nuclear grading in breast carcinoma. An unannounced test was performed at a pathology conference. Pathologists were asked to grade nuclei in a PowerPoint presentation. Circular high power fields of 27 invasive ductal carcinomas were shown, superimposed over low power background images of either tubule-rich or tubule-poor carcinomas. We found (a) that diagnostic reproducibility of nuclear grades was poor to moderate (weighed kappa values between 0.07 and 0.54, 27 cases, 44 graders), but (b) that nuclear grades were not affected by the tumor architecture. We speculate that the categorized grading in breast cancer, separating tubule formation, nuclear pleomorphism, and mitotic figure counts in a combined three tier score, prevents the bias that architecture exerts on nuclear grades in less well-controlled situations.

Empowering Mimicry: Female leader role models empower women in leadership tasks through body posture mimicry

In two studies we investigated the behavioral process through which visible female leader role models empower women in leadership tasks. We proposed that women tend to mimic the powerful (open) body postures of successful female role models, thus leading to more empowered behavior and better performance on a challenging leadership task, a process we called empowering mimicry. In Study 1, we experimentally manipulated the body posture of the male and female role models and showed that 86 Swiss college women mimicked the body posture of the female (ingroup) but not the male (outgroup) role model, thus leading to more empowered behavior and better performance on a public speaking task. In Study 2, we investigated the boundary conditions of this process and showed that empowering mimicry does not extend to exposures to non-famous female models among 50 Swiss college women. These findings suggest that nonverbal mimicry is one important mechanism through which female leader role models inspire women performing a challenging leadership task. From a practice perspective, our research underscores the importance of female leaders’ visibility because visibility can drive other women’s advancement in leadership by affording women the opportunity to mimic and be empowered by successful female role models.