Emotion recognition as a social act: the role of the expresser-observer relationship in recognizing emotions

There is abundant evidence both from the scientific literature as well as from everyday experiences that people are generally quite capable of inferring emotions from the face. But what does it mean that people are able to recognize others’ emotions? We first reflect on the question of how we can determine what is ‘accurate’. We distinguish between conceptualizing emotion recognition as a cognitive performance task or as a social act. In the first conceptualization, emotion recognition is considered an ability of matching patterns, in principle devoid of the social context, whereas in the latter conceptualization, we take into account that observers and expressers interact and have explicit or implicit knowledge about each other’s goals and motives, which influences what they ‘perceive’. Based on social functional theories of emotion and theories on emotional intelligence, adequately recognizing emotions in daily life should be related to successful social functioning. However, reviewing the evidence on the relation between emotion recognition and social competence, studies using standardized emotional recognition tests as part of more general emotional intelligence tests have not consistently found a positive association with aspects of social competence. We believe that this is mainly due to the way in which emotion recognition has been conceptualized and operationalized. Cognitive performance tasks using a match-mismatch paradigm seem less predictive of social competence than emotion recognition tasks that are more socially sensitive. The goal for future research is to develop tasks that better tap these social aspects of emotion recognition

Timescales of mixing and mobilisation in the Bishop Tuff magma body:Perspectives from diffusion chronometry

We present two-feldspar thermometry and diffusion chronometry from sanidine, orthopyroxene and quartz from multiple samples of the Bishop Tuff, California, to constrain the temperature stratification within the pre-eruptive magma body and the timescales of magma mixing prior to its evacuation. Two-feldspar thermometry yields estimates that agree well with previous Fe-Ti oxide thermometry and gives a ~80 °C temperature difference between the earlier- and later-erupted regions of the magma chamber. Using the thermometry results, we model diffusion of Ti in quartz, and Ba and Sr in sanidine as well as Fe-Mg interdiffusion in orthopyroxene to yield timescales for the formation of overgrowth rims on these crystal phases. Diffusion profiles of Ti in quartz and Fe-Mg in orthopyroxene both yield timescales of <150 years for the formation of overgrowth rims. In contrast, both Ba and Sr diffusion in sanidine yield nominal timescales 1-2 orders of magnitude longer than these two methods. The main cause for this discrepancy is inferred to be an incorrect assumption for the initial profile shape for Ba and Sr diffusion modelling (i.e. growth zoning exists). Utilising the divergent diffusion behaviour of Ba and Sr, we place constraints on the initial width of the interface and can refine our initial conditions considerably, bringing Ba and Sr data into alignment, and yielding timescales closer to 500 years, the majority of which are then within uncertainty of timescales modelled from Ti diffusion in quartz. Care must be thus taken when using Ba in sanidine geospeedometry in evolved magmatic systems where no other phases or elements are available for comparative diffusion profiling. Our diffusion modelling reveals piecemeal rejuvenation of the lower parts of the Bishop Tuff magma chamber at least 500 years prior to eruption. Timescales from our mineral profiling imply either that diffusion coefficients currently used are uncertain by 1-2 orders of magnitude, or that the minerals concerned did not experience a common history, despite being extracted from the same single pumice clasts. Introduction of the magma initiating crystallisation of the contrasting rims on sanidine, quartz, orthopyroxene and zircon was prolonged, and may be a marker of other processes that initiated the Bishop Tuff eruption rather than the trigger itself