TY - JOUR
T1 - Looking at you or looking elsewhere
T2 - The influence of head orientation on the signal value of emotional facial expressions
AU - Hess, Ursula
AU - Adams, Reginald B.
AU - Kleck, Robert E.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments This research was supported by a grant from the Fonds de Formation des Chercheurs et l’Aide à la Recherche to Ur-sula Hess and Robert E. Kleck and by National Science Foundation Grant 0544533 to Kleck, Hess, and Adams. We are grateful to Martin Beaupré for help with the data collection.
PY - 2007/6
Y1 - 2007/6
N2 - The role of horizontal head tilt for the perceptions of emotional facial expressions was examined. For this, a total of 387 participants rated facial expressions of anger, fear, sadness, and happiness, as well as neutral expressions shown by two men and two women in either a direct or an averted face angle. Decoding accuracy, attributions of dominance and affiliation, emotional reactions of the perceivers, and the felt desire to approach the expresser were assessed. Head position was found to strongly influence reactions to anger and fear but less so for other emotions. Direct anger expressions were more accurately decoded, perceived as less affiliative, and elicited higher levels of anxiousness and repulsion, as well as less desire to approach than did averted anger expressions. Conversely, for fear expressions averted faces elicited more negative affect in the perceiver. These findings suggest that horizontal head position is an important cue for the assessment of threat.
AB - The role of horizontal head tilt for the perceptions of emotional facial expressions was examined. For this, a total of 387 participants rated facial expressions of anger, fear, sadness, and happiness, as well as neutral expressions shown by two men and two women in either a direct or an averted face angle. Decoding accuracy, attributions of dominance and affiliation, emotional reactions of the perceivers, and the felt desire to approach the expresser were assessed. Head position was found to strongly influence reactions to anger and fear but less so for other emotions. Direct anger expressions were more accurately decoded, perceived as less affiliative, and elicited higher levels of anxiousness and repulsion, as well as less desire to approach than did averted anger expressions. Conversely, for fear expressions averted faces elicited more negative affect in the perceiver. These findings suggest that horizontal head position is an important cue for the assessment of threat.
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U2 - 10.1007/s11031-007-9057-x
DO - 10.1007/s11031-007-9057-x
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:34547313636
SN - 0146-7239
VL - 31
SP - 137
EP - 144
JO - Motivation and Emotion
JF - Motivation and Emotion
IS - 2
ER -