The Role of Fixations and Face Gender in Facial Expression Categorization

Author

Alisdair Taylor*

Department of Psychology, Bournemouth University, Bournemouth, United Kingdom

Abstract

Previous research has found that individuals’ judgments of facial expressions are influenced by the gender of the face presented, but little is known about the role that fixation eye movements play in this effect. The goal of the present research was to investigate the effect of face gender on categorization of various facial expressions, and to what extent fixation eye movements can explain this effect. A sample of 58 participants categorized various facial expressions (happy, neutral, angry, disgusted, and fearful), whilst having their eye movements recorded. The number and duration of fixations to predefined areas of interest (AOI), (Right eye, Left eye, Mouth, Nose) were recorded, as well as accuracy and reaction time to identify the expressions. Face gender and expression interacted (albeit with a small effect size) such that angry facial expressions were categorized more efficiently for male as opposed to female faces. Eye movement analysis revealed no differences in fixation eye movements across AOI’s as a function of face gender and expression, with the exception of the nose area of angry expressions, which was fixated more when expressed by a female face as opposed to a male face. These results affirm that face gender plays a role in emotion perception of facial expressions. Furthermore, visual attention to a non-salient feature, may to some extent differentiate processing ability of female and male angry faces.

Keywords: emotion; facial expressions; face perception; gender; fixations.

Pages: 101-115

doi:10.24193/cbb.2017.21.07

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