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Sketchpad Series

Exploring the Role of Emotion Intensity and Context on Face Emotion Recognition

Poster Session D - Monday, March 31, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Yuanyi Peng¹, Alex Kafkas¹, Karen Lander¹; ¹University of Manchester

The extent to which faces and contexts influence emotion recognition remains unclear. Previous studies have focused exclusively on the significance of either the face or the context but overlooked the role of emotion intensity. We hypothesised that the relative contribution of face and context on emotion recognition fluctuates depending on valence intensity levels (how strongly the emotion is expressed). In a behavioural study, 103 participants were recruited online to identify happy, sad, and neutral facial expressions presented within positive, negative, and neutral contexts (background images). Happy and sad faces were morphed to depict both high and low intensity levels. Participants rated face emotion from -4 (strongly sad) to 4 (strongly happy). Results showed that context influenced emotion recognition when the face was ambiguous (i.e., low intensity). However, as face intensity increased, it became the dominant factor, diminishing the context's influence. Experiment 2 employed eye-tracking to examine mechanisms involved in face emotion recognition, while type and intensity of context varied. Context stimuli were static or dynamic (movies) in a between-participants design. Preliminary analyses from Experiment 2 showed that type and intensity of context also affected gaze probability within facial regions, further supporting and extending the behavioural effects from Experiment 1. Overall, the findings indicate that context intensity and type play an important role in face emotional recognition. Faces with low emotional intensity rely more on context for accurate emotion recognition, a reliance that is heightened in dynamic contexts.

Topic Area: EMOTION & SOCIAL: Person perception