Projects per year
Abstract
Facial expressions are important social communicators. In addition to communicating social information, the specific muscular movements of expressions may serve additional functional roles. For example, recalibration theory hypothesizes that the anger expression exaggerates facial cues of strength, an indicator of human fighting ability, to increase bargaining power in conflicts. Supporting this theory is evidence that faces displaying one element of an angry expression (e.g. lowered eyebrows) are perceived to be stronger than faces with opposite expression features (e.g. raised eyebrows for fear). The present study sought stronger evidence that more natural manipulations of facial anger also enhance perceived strength. We used expression aftereffects to bias perception of a neutral face towards anger and observed the effects on perceptions of strength. In addition, we tested the specificity of the strength-cue enhancing effect by examining whether two other expressions, fear and happy, also affected perceptions of strength. We found that, as predicted, a face biased to be perceived as angrier was rated as stronger compared to a baseline rating, whereas a face biased to be more fearful was rated as weaker, consistent with the purported function of fear as an act of submission. Interestingly, faces biased towards a happy expression were also perceived as stronger, though the effect was smaller than that for anger. Overall, the results supported the recalibration theory hypothesis that the anger expression enhances cues of strength to increase bargaining power in conflicts, but with some limitations regarding the specificity of the function to anger.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 547-555 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Evolution and Human Behavior |
Volume | 42 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Nov 2021 |
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Dive into the research topics of 'Anger and fearful expressions influence perceptions of physical strength: Testing the signalling functions of emotional facial expressions with a visual aftereffects paradigm'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 3 Finished
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Fitting the mind to the world: Adaptive processes in face perception
Rhodes, G. (Investigator 01)
ARC Australian Research Council
1/01/13 → 31/12/16
Project: Research
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ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders
Crain, S. (Investigator 01), Rhodes, G. (Investigator 02), Hodges, J. (Investigator 03), Coltheart, M. (Investigator 04), Castles, A. (Investigator 05), Barnier, A. (Investigator 06), Brock, J. (Investigator 07), Byrne, B. (Investigator 08) & Palermo, R. (Investigator 09)
ARC Australian Research Council
1/01/11 → 31/12/18
Project: Research
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Adaptive Processes in Normal and Disordered Face Perception
Rhodes, G. (Chief Investigator), Pellicano, E. (Chief Investigator) & Leopold, D. (Chief Investigator)
ARC Australian Research Council
1/01/08 → 31/12/12
Project: Research