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. 2017 Jun;26(3):243-248.
doi: 10.1177/0963721417706392. Epub 2017 Jun 14.

Social Vision: Applying a Social-Functional Approach to Face and Expression Perception

Reginald B Adams Jr  1 , Daniel N Albohn  1 , Kestutis Kveraga  2
Affiliations

Social Vision: Applying a Social-Functional Approach to Face and Expression Perception

Reginald B Adams Jr et al. Curr Dir Psychol Sci. 2017 Jun.

Abstract

A social-functional approach to face processing comes with a number of assumptions. First, given that humans possess limited cognitive resources, it assumes that we naturally allocate attention to processing and integrating the most adaptively relevant social cues. Second, from these cues, we make behavioral forecasts about others in order to respond in an efficient and adaptive manner. This assumption aligns with broader ecological accounts of vision that highlight a direct action-perception link, even for nonsocial vision. Third, humans are naturally predisposed to process faces in this functionally adaptive manner. This latter contention is implied by our attraction to dynamic aspects of the face, including looking behavior and facial expressions, from which we tend to overgeneralize inferences, even when forming impressions of stable traits. The functional approach helps to address how and why observers are able to integrate functionally related compound social cues in a manner that is ecologically relevant and thus adaptive.

Keywords: compound social cues; emotion overgeneralization; eye gaze; facial appearance; facial expression.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests The authors declared that they had no conflicts of interest with respect to their authorship or the publication of this article.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
An illustration of face-image manipulations used by Adams et al. (2012). Panel (a) illustrates the warping procedure, which averaged a neutral face structure with a target expression’s structure to create a 50/50 average of the structural components of each while maintaining the neutral texture map. Panel (b) shows example stimuli for fear and anger warps of male and female faces. Compared with fear-warped faces, anger-warped faces were rated as more masculine and mature, higher on dominant traits, and lower on affiliative traits. (Face stimuli were drawn from the Montreal Set of Facial Displays of Emotion; Beaupré & Hess, 2005.)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Examples of angry and fearful face images from Adams and Kleck (2003) in which the gaze has been manipulated to illustrate the combinatorial nature of eye gaze with expression. The outlined images represent congruent pairings of eye gaze and expression (i.e., anger and a direct gaze signal approach, whereas fear and an averted gaze signal avoidance). (Face stimuli were drawn from the Montreal Set of Facial Displays of Emotion; Beaupré & Hess, 2005.)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Adams RB Jr, Ambady N, Nakayama K, Shimojo S, editors. The science of social vision. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 2010. An edited volume showcasing work across disciplines that exemplifies a functional approach to social vision.
    1. Adams RB, Jr, Ambady N, Macrae CN, Kleck RE. Emotional expressions forecast approach-avoidance behavior. Motivation & Emotion. 2006;30:179–188.
    1. Adams RB, Jr, Franklin RG, Jr, Kveraga K, Ambady N, Kleck RE, Whalen PJ, Nelson AJ. Amygdala responses to averted versus direct gaze fear vary as a function of presentation speed. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 2012;7:568–577. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Adams RB, Jr, Franklin RG, Jr, Nelson AJ, Gordon HL, Kleck RE, Whalen PJ, Ambady N. Differentially tuned responses to restricted versus prolonged awareness of threat: A preliminary fMRI investigation. Brain and Cognition. 2011;77:113–119. - PubMed
    1. Adams RB, Jr, Hess U, Kleck RE. The intersection of gender-related facial appearance and facial displays of emotion. Emotion Review. 2015;7:5–13.

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