The Differences Between Gay Men And Straight Men Facial Expression Recognition

Expression is a basic way of expressing emotions, also is a kind of important nonverbal communication signals. Previous research has shown that gender is the important factor that affect cognitive function in men and women, that women’s greater accuracy in judging the emotional meanings of nonverbal cues is well established(Hall, 1978, 1984; Hall, Carter, & Horgan, 2000).It has been argued that homosexual show cross-sex shifts in several sexually dimorphic domains in line with their cross-sexshifted sexual preference(Ellis & Ames, 1987).There is growing evidence that gay men show cross-sex shifted(female-typical) patterns of performance on tasks which traditionally favour men and those which favour women.In the present investigation, we sought to examine the role of an additional factor, which may affect normative sex differences in certain cognitive functions—sexual orientation.This study includes two sub studies. First, when face expression is complete, explore subjects differences in recognition accuracy and reaction time, then with applying of eye movement technique,explore their judgement based in different parts of the concrete face information. Second, when expression information is integrity covered(namely eyes information covered or the nose and mouth information covered), use the eye movement technology explore their judgement of both similarities and differences. The results are as follows.1. When the information of the face expression is complete, that the sexual orientation and the emotion type effect is exist. Gay man recognition accuracy is significantly higher than straight man. But there is no significant difference between the two groups’ reaction time.That the recognition accuracy from less to more is anger, disgust, happy, calm; reaction time from less to more is calm, happy, anger and disgust.2. When the information of the face expression is complete, the eye movement research show that there was no sexual orientation difference in overall of fixations and duration time to the face. However, there was a significant difference favouring gay man in the number of fixtions made to the eyes, that gay man showed more fixations and longer dwell time to the eyes. And the emotion type effect is exist. The fixation times from less to more is calm, happy, disgust, anger; duration time from less to more is calm, happy, disgust, and anger.3.When expression information is integrity covered, the recognition accuracy and reaction time were no significant differences between the two groups. Still the recognition accuracy from more to lessis calm, happy, disgust, anger; reaction time from less to more is calm, happy, disgust, and anger.4. When expression information is integrity covered, the eye movement research show that there is no significant difference between the two groups’ fixations. But the homosexual’ fixations duration time on the expression are more than heterosexuals’. Still emotion type effect is exist. The fixation times from less to more is calm, happy, disgust, anger;And duration time from less to more is calm, happy, disgust and anger.