Abstract:

When we try to figure out how other people are feeling, one of the first things we pay attention to is their facial expression. But the emotional significance of a facial expression is often ambiguous, and their interpretation can depend on contextual factors, such as personal utility. In a pilot study, we observed that individuals are more likely to see sadness in an ambiguous facial expression when detecting the sadness of others has a higher relevance for them. However, people seem to differ in the extent to which they are influenced by changes in personal utility. In the study I’m presenting we investigate how these differences are represented in neural activation as assessed by fMRI, and we test for the potential roles of autistic traits and alexithymia. We developed an adaptive signal detection model to track individuals’ criterion setting over time and estimate the subjective roles of personal utility versus facial cue intensity. In my talk I’m going to discuss this model and present preliminary results.

Contact:

Hanna Thaler, PhD Fellow, hthaler@cas.au.dk