Nancy Alvarado

Arousal and Valence in the Direct Scaling of Emotional Response to Film Clips

Contributions of differential attention to valence versus arousal (Feldman, 1995) in self-reported emotional response may be difficult to observe due to (1)confounding of valence and arousal in the labeling of rating scales, and (2) the assumption of an interval scale type. Ratings of emotional response to film clips (Ekman, Friesen, & Ancoli, 1980) were reanalyzed as categorical (nominal) in scale type using consensus analysis. Consensus emerged for valence-related scales but not for arousal scales. Scales labeled Interest and Arousal produced a distribution of idiosyncratic responses across the scale, whereas scales labeled Happiness, Anger, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, Surprise, and Pain, produced consensual response. Magnitude of valenced response varied with both stimulus properties and self-reported arousal.

The Use of Modifying Terms in the Naming and Categorization of Color Appearances in Vietnamese and English

Cross-cultural studies of color naming show that basic terms are universally the most frequently used to name colors. However, such basic color terms are always used in the context of larger linguistic systems when specific properties of color experience are described. To investigate naturalistic naming behaviors, we examined the use of modifiers in English and Vietnamese color naming using an unconstrained naming task (Jameson & Alvarado, in press). Monolingual and bilingual subjects named a representative set of 110 color stimuli sampled from a commonly used color-order stimulus space. Results revealed greater reliance upon polylexemic naming among monolingual Vietnamese speakers and greater use of monolexemic basic hue terms and secondary terms (object glosses) among monolingual English speakers. Systematic differences across these language groups imply that widely used monolexemic naming methods may differentially impact color-naming findings in cross-cultural investigations of color cognition.

Varieties of Anger: The Relation Between Emotion Terms and Components of Anger Expressions

Component theory (C. Smith & H. Scott, 1997) predicts that presence of component movements (action units) alters the decoded meaning of a basic emotional expression. We tested whether the meaning of the basic expression of anger varied when different components were present in the expression. Participants were asked to label variants of anger from Ekman and Friesens Pictures of Facial Affect using 15 anger terms, and invariance of labeling was tested by manipulating the judgment task. Data were analyzed using consensus analysis, multidimensional scaling, and numerical scaling. Components did not result in consensus about fine distinctions in the meanings of the anger expressions. Varying the type of task strongly affected results. We believe this occurred because language elicits different categorization processes than evaluation of facial expressions nonverbally.

The relational correspondence between category exemplars and names

While recognizing the theoretical importance of context, current research has treated naming as though semantic meaning were invariant and the same mapping of category exemplars and names should exist across experimental contexts. An assumed symmetry or bidirectionality in naming behavior has been implicit in the interchangeable use of tasks that ask subjects to match names to stimuli and tasks that ask subjects to match stimuli to names. Examples from the literature are discussed together with several studies of color naming and basic emotion naming in which no such symmetry was found. A more complete model of naming is proposed to account for flexible mapping of names to items. Principles of naming are suggested to describe effects of stimulus sampling, differing access to terms, task demands, and other impacts on naming behavior.

Semantic and Perceptual Representations of Color: Evidence of a Shared Color-Naming Function

Much research on color representation and categorization has assumed that relations among color terms can be proxies for relations among color percepts. We test this assumption by comparing the mapping of color words with color appearances among different observer groups performing cognitive tasks: (1) an invariance of naming task; and (2) triad similarity judgments of color term and color appearance stimuli within and across color categories. Observer subgroups were defined by perceptual phenotype and photopigment opsin genotype analyses. Results suggest that individuals rely on at least two different representational models of color experience: one lexical, conforming to the cultures normative linguistic representation, and another individual perceptual representation organizing each observers color sensation experiences. Additional observer subgroup analyses suggest that perceptual phenotype variation within a language group may play a greater role in the shared color naming system than previously thought. A reexamination of color naming data in view of these findings may reveal influences on color naming important to current theories.

Beyond the Turing test: performance metrics for evaluating a computer simulation of the human mind

Performance metrics for machine intelligence (e.g., the Turing test) have traditionally consisted of pass/fail tests. Because the tests devised by psychologists have been aimed at revealing unobservable processes of human cognition, they are similarly capable of revealing how a computer accomplishes a task, not simply its success or failure. Here we adapt a set of tests of abilities previously measured in humans to be used as a benchmark for simulation of human cognition. Our premise is that if a machine cannot pass these tests, it is unlikely to be able to engage in the more complex cognition routinely exhibited by animals and humans. If it cannot pass these tests, it will lack fundamental capabilities underlying such performance.

Shared Knowledge About Emotion Among Vietnamese and English Bilingual and Monolingual Speakers

Recent empirical findings show strong similarity in the structure of emotion space across highly diverse cultures. Previous researchers believe this demonstrates shared conceptual understanding of emotion. However, similarity may emerge from sources such as similar language structure operated upon by pan-human categorization processes. Thus, existence of a superordinate concept of emotion may be prerequisite to similar categorization of emotion terms. Within a broader emotion category, cultural differences may be strongest for subordinate terms that convey contextualized information. To explore this, the authors replicated studies of Chinese and Japanese, comparing emotion term similarity judgments for monolingual and bilingual Vietnamese and English speakers in the United States and Saigon, Vietnam. Participants showed strong consensus about meanings of 15 emotion terms, with differences for two subordinate-level terms, “shame” and “anguish.” Judgments for bilingual participants mirrored those of monolinguals in each language, indicating code switching. The Interpoint Distance Model was applied to interpret the results.

Confidence Judgments on Color Category Best Exemplars

Although basic color terms and basic color appearances have been shown to produce higher confidence ratings in a variety of naming and judgment tasks, our findings suggest that when different ethnolinguistic cultures are compared, higher confidence is not strictly linked to the basic foci of Berlin and Kay nor the centroid samples identified by Boynton and colleagues. This raises important questions about high confidence as evidence of the salience of basic color foci, a point central to the widely accepted basic color-term theoretical framework. This study analyzes confidence judgment data for Vietnamese and English color naming, suggesting that high confidence may be more directly linked to aspects of a task rather than universal focal color stimuli. Culture-specific patterns of naming, an individual’s access to shared cultural knowledge, and goodness of fit between exemplars and names provide a more complete explanation of the higher confidence observed for certain color appearances.

Pain facial expression: Individual variability undermines the specific adaptationist account

The proposal that there are specific adaptations for the expression and detection of pain appears premature on both conceptual and empirical grounds. We discuss criteria for the validation of a pain facial expression. We also describe recent findings from our lab on coping styles and pain expression, which illustrate the importance of considering individual differences when proposing evolutionary explanations. We applaud Williams’ goal that pain be adequately recognized and treated, and her cross-disciplinary synthesis of several literatures. However, there are pitfalls to such an effort, and the fit between her theory and the empirical findings appears questionable. Williams argues that natural selection shaped specific adaptations for the production and decoding of pain expressions. According to her logic, the inclusive fitness benefit to the sender is the receipt of succor from conspecifics, while the benefit to the observer is awareness of potential dangers. Logically, this would require that the facial expression of pain be clear and distinct from other emotional expressions and that observers be able to reliably detect such expressions. Therefore, pain action units (AUs) must be: (1) co-occurring; (2) evident among some percentage of subjects; (3) elicited by a variety of painevoking stimuli; and (4) differentiated from other expressions. Williams does not analyze the most relevant data (frequency, percentages of subjects displaying each AU, co-occurrence of AUs), which are essential in evaluating the robustness of a proposed pain expression. Also problematic is that people are poor at reliably detecting another’s pain and do not necessarily rely on the AUs implicated in the proposed pain expression (e.g., nasolabial furrow [AU 11]; Chambers & McGrath 1998, as cited by Williams). To address these difficulties, Williams proposes selective pressures for the detection of faked pain expressions to prevent “social cheating.” As evidence, she points out that physicians with incentives to avoid unnecessarily prescribing analgesics are particularly prone to underestimate pain. This illustrates a general weakness in her theoretical approach, namely, insufficient consideration of other possibilities besides operant behaviorism and evolutionary psychology. It is gratuitous to propose specific adaptations for behaviors that would be expected to emerge from general processes of means–end problem solving (Harris & Pashler 1995). People are alert to cues that are relevant to their goals and interests in many different domains, including activities that only emerged in recent human history and for which no specific adaptations could exist. To achieve their goal of accurate diagnosis, health care professionals must be able to detect Figure 1 (Harris & Alvarado). Correlated self-reported pain and facial activity by coping style misleading pain expression; hence, they will develop strategies for doing so (whether valid or invalid). There is no need to invoke “evolved propensities or inference rules” for detecting pain or the dissimulation of pain to explain this, and such behavior may have little to do with the types of “social contracts” that occurred in the Pleistocene era. From Williams’ review, the pain expression appears subject to the same complexities as emotional expression. Like emotional expressions (Alvarado & Jameson 2002), pain expressions are reliably decoded only when extreme, and they convey amplitude of experience poorly. Their interpretation varies with context and can be biased by suggestion. Pain expressions are influenced by display rules, and show large individual differences in both production and decoding. As with emotional expressions, the relationship between facial activity, physiological response, and selfreport is poorly understood and difficult to demonstrate. These similarities suggest that pain expressions belong to a more generalized phenomenon of facial expressive behavior best studied together with, and in the same manner, as emotional expressions. Such work demands greater rigor than is usually possible in clinical or naturalistic settings. Williams shows little recognition of the controversies among those studying facial behavior. She claims that the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) cannot be used to record durations, onset or offset times, asymmetries, cooccurrence of AUs, or other subtleties present in dynamic stimuli. Studies by Ekman and Rosenberg (Ekman 1997a; Ekman & Rosenberg 1997) contradict this assertion, as does the FACS manual. Williams overemphasizes the potential impact of posing, deception, anxiety, and embarrassment on the behavior of lab participants. In this, she uncritically accepts arguments raised by critics of Ekman’s approach (Russell & Fernandez-Dols 1997), without showing that they matter in the empirical studies reviewed. Such “methodological” criticisms, if valid, work against her argument: An expression so fragile as to be disrupted by subtle lab-induced anomalies cannot have evolved a survival-related meaning sufficiently reliable to be useful in BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2002) 25, 461–462