113 research outputs found
Described robot functionality impacts emotion experience attributions
This work tested whether attributions of emotional
experience vary with the perceived functionality of robots. When
robots were described in terms of their social value, participants
assigned greater levels of emotional experience compared to
when robots merely seemed to fulfil economic needs. However,
increased perceptions of experience elicited more uncomfortable
feelings in observers, apparently tapping into the uncanny valley.
Implications for the use of social robots and human responses to
feeling machines are discussed
No matter how real: Out-group faces convey less humanness
Past research on real human faces has shown that out-group members
are commonly perceived as lacking human qualities, which links them to
machines or objects. In this study, we aimed to test whether similar out-group
effects generalize to artificial faces. Caucasian participants were presented with
images of male Caucasian and Indian faces and had to decide whether human
traits (naturally and uniquely human) as well as emotions (primary and
secondary) could or could not be attributed to them. In line with previous
research, we found that naturally human traits and secondary emotions were
attributed less often to the out-group (Indian) than to the in-group (Caucasian),
and this applied to both real and artificial faces. The findings extend prior
research and show that artificial stimuli readily evoke intergroup processes.
This has implications for the design of animated characters, suggesting that outgroup
faces convey less humanness regardless of how life-like their
representation is
Dominance biases in the perception and memory for the faces of powerholders, with consequences for social inferences
A great deal of research has shown that dominant-looking faces are afforded power. In this research, we tested the reverse link. As such, we examined whether knowledge of a target's power would lead to a dominance bias in face perception. Five studies were conducted by applying face morphing techniques to both controlled facial stimuli and faces of powerholders in the real world. Results showed that faces of powerholders were misrecollected (Studies 1A and 1B) and misperceived (Studies 3A and 3B) as more dominant-looking than their powerless counterparts. In addition, their faces were misrecollected as more prototypically dominant in physical appearance than they actually were (Studies 1A, 1B, and 2). Furthermore, enhanced facial dominance affected social inferences, with evaluations such as competence and attractiveness being sensitive to the gender of the target person (Study 3B). Implications for research on power and face perception are discussed
Facial behavior
: We provide an overview of the current state-of-the-art regarding research
on facial behavior from what we hope is a well-balanced historical perspective.
Based on a critical discussion of the main theoretical views of nonverbal facial
activity (i.e., affect program theory, appraisal theory, dimensional theory, behavioral ecology), we focus on some key issues regarding the cohesion of emotion and
expression, including the issue of “genuine smiles.” We argue that some of the
challenges faced by the field are a consequence of these theoretical positions, their
assumptions, and we discuss how they have generated and shaped research. A
clear distinction of encoding and decoding processes may prove beneficial to identify specific problems – for example the use of posed expressions in facial expression research, or the impact of the psychological situation on the perceiver. We
argue that knowledge of the functions of facial activity may be central to understanding what facial activity is truly about; this includes a serious consideration
of social context at all stages of encoding and decoding. The chapter concludes
with a brief overview of recent technical advances and challenges highlighted by
the new field of “affective computing” concerned with facial activity
You are What You Wear: Unless You Moved—Effects of Attire and Posture on Person Perception
While first impressions are often based on appearance cues, little is known about how these interact with information from other channels. The present research aimed to investigate the impact of occupational stereotypes, evoked by attire, as well as posture on person perception. For this, computer animation was used to create avatars with different types of attire (nurse, military, casual) and posture (open, closed). In Study 1 (N = 164), participants attributed significantly more empathy to avatars wearing a nurse versus a military uniform or casual outfit. When adding posture as an additional cue, Study 2 (N = 312) showed that ratings of empathy and dominance were affected by both attire and posture. This effect was replicated in Study 3 (N = 163) for female avatars, in the sense that open postures in nurses increased empathy ratings and decreased dominance ratings, which both in turn led to greater perceived competence. By contrast, for male avatars, posture did not affect attributions of competence directly. Rather, attire predicted perceived dominance directly, as well as through perceived empathy. The present findings suggest that both posture, and occupational information evoked by attire, are used to infer personal characteristics. However, the strength of each cue may vary with the gender of the target
Money: An integrated review and synthesis from a psychological perspective
Many empirical studies have demonstrated the psychological effects of various aspects of money, including the aspiration for money, mere thoughts about money, possession of money, and placement of people in economic contexts. Although multiple aspects of money and varied methodologies have been focused on and implemented, the underlying mechanisms of the empirical findings from these seemingly isolated areas significantly overlap. In this article, we operationalize money as a broad concept and take a novel approach by providing an integrated review of the literature and identifying five major streams of mechanisms: (a) self-focused behavior; (b) inhibited other-oriented behavior; (c) favoring of a self–other distinction; (d) money’s relationship with self-esteem and self-efficacy; and (e) goal pursuit, objectification, outcome maximization, and unethicality. Moreover, we propose a unified psychological perspective for the future—money as an embodiment of social distinction—which could potentially account for past findings and generate future work
The Powerful Self: How Social Power and Gender Influence Face Perception
While ample evidence supports an association between power and dominance, little is still known about how temporary experiences of power influence the way people come to see themselves and others. The present research investigates the effect of social power on self- and other-face recognition, and examines whether gender modulates the direction of this effect. Male and female participants were induced to feel either powerful or powerless and had to recognize their own face and those of same-sex strangers from a series of images ranging from a dominant to a submissive version of the original. Results showed that males more frequently chose a dominant self-image under high power, whereas females selected a submissive self-image under low power. When presented with faces of same-sex targets female participants relied on low-power features (i.e., submissiveness) of the self in the perception of others (assimilation effect), whereas male participants more often selected a dominant image of strangers when feeling powerless (constrast effect). The effects of power did not extend to more deliberate judgments of dominance and likability, suggesting that respective biases in face recollection operated at an implicit level. This research underscores the cognitive and motivational underpinnings of power and related gender gaps in power attainment
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