The Modulation Effect Of Different Facial Expressions On College Students' Gaze Cuing Effect And Its Change Trend With SOA

Gaze cuing effect refers to that when the eyes in the central face are gazing at the same direction of the targets which would be presented at periphery could accelerate the detection of the targets.Based on the important role of gaze direction and facial expression in social attention,the appropriate integration of expression cues and gaze direction cues can help people better infer the psychological state of others,evaluate the nature of stimuli in the environment then make appropriate responses accordingly.When people looks at one position or object with a certain facial expression,it helps the observer to infer threatening or rewarding information about the position or object without making direct contact with it.This paper aims to explore the following issues through three experiments with college and graduate students as participants.We adopted the gaze cuing paradigm and used dynamic gaze cuing sequence which can induce largest GCE and has bigger ecological validity.In order to ensure the motion information is balance between the neutral condition and emotional condition,we created a neutral face condition with slightly opened mouth.Subjects were asked to judge the location of target by pressing the keyboard.We collected the response time and correct rate to explore the relationship between expression.SOA and gaze cuing effect.In experiment 1,60 subjects were selected,and 2(expression:happy,neutral.and fearful)× 2(cue validity:effective and invalid)within subjects design were used.Through the design of neutral face condition with motion information,experiment 1 aims to discuss the modulation effect of happy and fearful expression on gaze cuing effect under the condition of sufficient stimulus-onset asynchrony(SOA)(700ms),which the enhancement effect of fearful expression was stably found.The results showed that baze cuing effect existed,that is,the response time under the condition of valid cue was significantly lower than that under the condition of invalid cue.Under the condition of fearful expression,gaze cuing effect was significantly stronger than that under neutral condition,and happy expression had the same enhancement effect.There was no significant difference between the effect of happy expression and fearful expression.Experiment 1 has shown that both happy and fearful expressions can enhance the gaze cuing effect under neutral conditions with motion information and sufficient length of SOA.In experiment 2,77 subjects were selected,and 2(expression:happy,neutral,and fearful)× 2(cue validity:effective and invalid)× 3(SOA:500ms/600ms/700ms)within subjects design were used.Experiment 2 aims to explore whether(1)the moderating effect of happy expression on gaze cuing effect only appears in the longest SOA condition,while the moderating effect of fearful expression already exists in the shorter SOA condition:(2)the moderating effect of expression remains unchanged or tends to decrease with the increase of SOA.The results showed that gaze cuing effect was stable existing under the SOA condition of 500-700ms.that is,response time under the condition of valid cue was significantly lower than that under the condition of invalid cue.Under the condition of happy expression and fearful expression,gaze cuing effect was significantly greater than that under neutral condition,and the moderating effect of both expressions had already appeared under 500ms SOA.and it was stable under three different levels of SOA.Under the three SOA conditions,there was no significant difference in the regulating effect of facial expression on gaze cuing effect.Experiment 2 shows that in the longer SOA condition.with the increase of SOA.gaze cuing effect tends to decrease.Both happy and fearful expressions enhanced gaze cuing effect in the adaptive neutral face condition.In experiment 3,80 subjects were selected,and 2(expression:happy,neutral.and fearful)× 2(cue validity:effective and invalid)× 3(SOA:150ms/250ms/350ms)within subjects design were used.Experiment 3 aims to explore whether(1)SOA required by the integration of expression information and gaze information is shorter than 300ms;(2)the moderating effect of fearful expression on gaze cues appears earlier than the moderating effect of happy expression,showing the advantage of perceived threat adaptation:(3)gaze cuing effect and expression regulation effect increases with the increase of SOA.The results showed that gaze cuing effect was stable existed under the SOA condition of 150-350ms.that is.response time under the condition of valid cue was significantly lower than that under the condition of invalid cue.At the 150ms SOA condition,gaze cuing effect under the condition of happy expression and fearful expression was significantly larger than that under the neutral condition,and there was no significant difference between the enhancement effect of happy expression and fearful expression.Experiment 3 shows that under the condition of shorter SOA,with the increase of SOA,gaze cuing effect increases.The integration of facial expression and gaze cues has been shown under the SOA condition of 150ms,but the regulating effect of facial expression is not stable under shorter SOA condition.The study did not find the dominant effect of fear expression compared with happy expression.Under the conditions of this study,we found that:(1)gaze cuing effect is stable and shows a trend of increasing first and then decreasing under the SOA condition of 150-700ms;(2)both happy expression,which contains potential reward information or social interaction tendency information and the fearful expression which contains threatening information and danger signal can be combined with gaze cues to affect the attention orientation and response of individuals,which is shown as the enhancement of gaze cuing effect;(3)the effect of facial expression information on gaze cuing effect has appeared at 150ms SOA.but this moderating effect is not stable under shorter SOA condition.