{"title":"高移情能力者对模糊面部表情的负面解释偏差","authors":"Yuanyuan Fang, Haijiang Li","doi":"10.1007/s11031-024-10090-1","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Previous studies have found that individuals with high empathy tend to describe ambiguous faces as negative expressions that convey helplessness. However, the cognitive mechanism behind this processing pattern (i.e. whether it is due to interpretation bias or perceptual sensitivity) and whether the pattern is specific to emotions implying helplessness or applicable to all negative emotions are still unclear. The present study aimed to fill these gaps. Fifty-four undergraduates with high empathy and fifty-four with low empathy completed an emotion recognition paradigm. In this paradigm, they were presented with sad–happy and angry–happy expression continua and then were asked to indicate which emotion the presented facial images most resembled. For the sad–happy continuum, the high-empathy group showed higher shift points compared to the low-empathy group, but with comparable slopes. No significant differences were found when using the angry–happy continuum. The findings indicate that the negative facial recognition of high empathizers is attributed to interpretation bias rather than perceptual sensitivity, and this pattern is specific to faces conveying helplessness. This may help to understand the distress in high empathizers and lay the groundwork for alleviating mental and interpersonal problems of high-empathy individuals through interpretation bias intervention.</p>","PeriodicalId":48282,"journal":{"name":"Motivation and Emotion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Negative interpretation bias towards ambiguous facial expressions in individuals with high empathy\",\"authors\":\"Yuanyuan Fang, Haijiang Li\",\"doi\":\"10.1007/s11031-024-10090-1\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<p>Previous studies have found that individuals with high empathy tend to describe ambiguous faces as negative expressions that convey helplessness. However, the cognitive mechanism behind this processing pattern (i.e. whether it is due to interpretation bias or perceptual sensitivity) and whether the pattern is specific to emotions implying helplessness or applicable to all negative emotions are still unclear. The present study aimed to fill these gaps. Fifty-four undergraduates with high empathy and fifty-four with low empathy completed an emotion recognition paradigm. In this paradigm, they were presented with sad–happy and angry–happy expression continua and then were asked to indicate which emotion the presented facial images most resembled. For the sad–happy continuum, the high-empathy group showed higher shift points compared to the low-empathy group, but with comparable slopes. No significant differences were found when using the angry–happy continuum. The findings indicate that the negative facial recognition of high empathizers is attributed to interpretation bias rather than perceptual sensitivity, and this pattern is specific to faces conveying helplessness. This may help to understand the distress in high empathizers and lay the groundwork for alleviating mental and interpersonal problems of high-empathy individuals through interpretation bias intervention.</p>\",\"PeriodicalId\":48282,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Motivation and Emotion\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":1.7000,\"publicationDate\":\"2024-08-16\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Motivation and Emotion\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"102\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-024-10090-1\",\"RegionNum\":3,\"RegionCategory\":\"心理学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q3\",\"JCRName\":\"PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Motivation and Emotion","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-024-10090-1","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
Negative interpretation bias towards ambiguous facial expressions in individuals with high empathy
Previous studies have found that individuals with high empathy tend to describe ambiguous faces as negative expressions that convey helplessness. However, the cognitive mechanism behind this processing pattern (i.e. whether it is due to interpretation bias or perceptual sensitivity) and whether the pattern is specific to emotions implying helplessness or applicable to all negative emotions are still unclear. The present study aimed to fill these gaps. Fifty-four undergraduates with high empathy and fifty-four with low empathy completed an emotion recognition paradigm. In this paradigm, they were presented with sad–happy and angry–happy expression continua and then were asked to indicate which emotion the presented facial images most resembled. For the sad–happy continuum, the high-empathy group showed higher shift points compared to the low-empathy group, but with comparable slopes. No significant differences were found when using the angry–happy continuum. The findings indicate that the negative facial recognition of high empathizers is attributed to interpretation bias rather than perceptual sensitivity, and this pattern is specific to faces conveying helplessness. This may help to understand the distress in high empathizers and lay the groundwork for alleviating mental and interpersonal problems of high-empathy individuals through interpretation bias intervention.
期刊介绍:
Motivation and Emotion publishes articles on human motivational and emotional phenomena that make theoretical advances by linking empirical findings to underlying processes. Submissions should focus on key problems in motivation and emotion, and, if using non-human participants, should contribute to theories concerning human behavior. Articles should be explanatory rather than merely descriptive, providing the data necessary to understand the origins of motivation and emotion, to explicate why, how, and under what conditions motivational and emotional states change, and to document that these processes are important to human functioning.A range of methodological approaches are welcome, with methodological rigor as the key criterion. Manuscripts that rely exclusively on self-report data are appropriate, but published articles tend to be those that rely on objective measures (e.g., behavioral observations, psychophysiological responses, reaction times, brain activity, and performance or achievement indicators) either singly or combination with self-report data.The journal generally does not publish scale development and validation articles. However, it is open to articles that focus on the post-validation contribution that a new measure can make. Scale development and validation work therefore may be submitted if it is used as a necessary prerequisite to follow-up studies that demonstrate the importance of the new scale in making a theoretical advance.