PubMed Health⌕ Search

PubMed · 11447663

Making faces: creating three-dimensional parameterized models of facial expression.

Abstract

Previous studies of the perceptual processing and dynamics of emotional expression in faces have been limited by the lack of realistic yet controlled stimuli. The present work offers researchers a method for creating such stimuli for exploring these phenomena. We describe the creation of the stimuli and a series of experiments testing the validity of these stimuli with respect to emotional expressions in humans. Participants evaluated synthesized facial images and standardized photographs of six basic emotional expressions for intensity and accuracy of perceived emotion. Comparisons of these measures were qualitatively similar for synthesized and photographed faces. A manipulation of the magnitude of the synthesized expressions yielded a significant effect on the perceived intensity of expression. In a subsequent multidimensional scaling study, no systematic differences were uncovered in the derived configurations of the synthesized expressions and the photographs. These results are discussed in the context of possible future research applications.

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

J Spencer-Smith, H Wild, A H Innes-Ker, J Townsend, C Duffy, C Edwards, K Ervin, N Merritt, J W Paik. 2001. Making faces: creating three-dimensional parameterized models of facial expression.. https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03195356

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related citations

What's fair? The unconscious calculus of our moral faculty.

This essay argues that much of the research in moral psychology has focused on moral performance, on what people do. The study of moral competence, in contrast, has largely been ignored. I use the analogy to linguistics as a model for exploring our moral competence, and suggest that we are endowed with a moral faculty that operates over the causes and consequences of actions. This moral faculty is endowed with principles and parameters that are universal. Acquiring a particular moral system entails setting the parameters. On this model, emotions such as empathy are consequences (as opposed to causes) of unconscious but principled moral evaluations.

Emotions↗

Empathy-related responding and prosocial behaviour.

In this paper I differentiate among empathy, sympathy and personal distress and discuss the central role of empathy-related responding in positive (including moral) development. Empathy-related responding, especially sympathy, is likely an important source of prosocial, other-oriented motivation. In fact, empathy-related responding, especially sympathy, has been associated with prosocial behaviour (voluntary behaviour intended to benefit another, e.g. helping, sharing); this relation has been obtained for both specific instances of empathy-related responding and for dispositional sympathy. In addition, sympathy (or sometimes empathy) has been linked to relatively high levels of moral reasoning and social competence, and to low levels of aggression and antisocial behaviour. In my talk, I will review research on the relation of empathy-related responding to prosocial behaviour, the consistency of costly prosocial behaviour over time and the possible role of sympathy in its consistency, and the relation of empathy-related responding to moral reasoning, antisocial behaviour and social competence. Examples of research, including longitudinal research in our laboratory, are provided to illustrate these relations. Because of its close relations to social and prosocial responding, an understanding of empathy-related responding contributes to efforts to promote children's moral development.

Emotions↗