Facial expression perceived as neutral identifying the neutral expression area in the visual information space of facial expression

摘要

In this paper we investigated the perception of neutral facial expression using schematic faces. In Experiment 1 participants were asked to alter the characteristics of a schematic face until they perceived it as being emotionally neutral. In Experiment 2 we presented morphed schematic faces which changed gradually from neutral to each one of the six basic emotions (happiness, surprise, fear, sadness, anger, and disgust). Images were presented in successive orders from neutral to emotional, and vice versa. Participants were asked to indicate the first image which they perceived as expressing an emotion. Using these data we identified the neutral expression area in the two-dimensional space of visual information.