Predictors of Nonverbal Recognition of Emotional Facial Expressions

Abstract

The work was carried out in the paradigm of analyzing the structure of erroneous responses when performing the identification of emotional facial expressions. The subjects performed the task of non-verbal recognition of facial expressions at tachistoscopic exposure time (16 ms, 8 ms, 4 ms). The search for predictors that determine the partial proportions of responses for different combinations (response, expression shown) was performed among the subscales of the Boyko empathy questionnaire, the EmIn questionnaire, the analytical-holistic scale, and the Alekseev thinking styles questionnaire. The study involved students from Moscow universities. Sample size: 49 people, 9 men, 40 women, average age m=22.2 years, sd=4.45.The identified predictors are specific (not universal) in nature, different for different combinations of the presented image and the assessment performed. We believe that this result should be interpreted as indicating the presence of competing parallel processes associated with testing for the presence of different emotional expressions. The selected system of predictors is not complete. A promising direction for further research is expanding the scope of the search for predictors through methods that measure individual personality characteristics and the level of anxiety.