Effects of Gender and Luminance Backgrounds on the Recognition of Neutral Facial Expressions

  • Vincenzo Capuano
  • Gennaro Cordasco
  • Filomena Scibelli
  • Mauro Maldonato
  • Marcos Faundez-Zanuy
  • Anna Esposito
Chapter
First Online:
Part of the Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies book series (SIST, volume 69)

Abstract

In this study we challenged the universal view of facial emotion perception evaluating the effects of gender and different luminance backgrounds on the recognition accuracy of neutral facial expressions. To this aim, we applied the Ekman standard paradigm for assessing the human ability to decode neutral facial expressions reproduced on black, white and grey backgrounds and portrayed by male and female actors. The exploited stimuli consisted of 10 different neutral faces (5 females) selected from the Dutch Radboud database (Langner et al. Cogn Emot, 2010 [21]) where luminance backgrounds were changed in black, grey and white. The resulted 30 stimuli were assessed by 31 subjects (16 females) who were asked to tag each of them with one of the six primary emotion labels. The data analysis demonstrates a significant gender effect where neutral male faces are less accurately decoded than females ones. On the other hand, no effects of luminance backgrounds have been identified.

Keywords

Emotions Emotional recognition Neutral facial expressions Socio-cultural influence Gender effects 
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Copyright information

© Springer International Publishing AG 2018

Authors and Affiliations

  • Vincenzo Capuano
    • 2
  • Gennaro Cordasco
    • 1
  • Filomena Scibelli
    • 2
  • Mauro Maldonato
    • 3
  • Marcos Faundez-Zanuy
    • 4
  • Anna Esposito
    • 1
  1. 1.Dipartimento di PsicologiaUniversità della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli” and International Institute for Advanced Scientific Studies (IIASS)Vietri sul MareItaly
  2. 2.Dipartimento di PsicologiaUniversità della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”CasertaItaly
  3. 3.Dipartimento di Scienze UmaneUniversità della BasilicataPotenzaItaly
  4. 4.Pompeu Fabra UniversityBarcelonaSpain

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