Recognition of blurred images of facial emotional expression in apparent movement

We studied the influence of the apparent (stroboscopic) movements on the perception of facial expressions of basic expressions of defocused images. Varied factors were modality of expression, context, time of exposure and the degree of the face blurring. We found that under conditions of stroboscopic exposure, high-attractive face expressions (happiness, surprise) and a neutral face are most adequately perceived by observers, and the relative accuracy of their recognition in all stimulus situation does not change. Adequacy recognition of low-attractive expressions (disgust, sadness, fear and anger) depends on the duration of exposure of the face and the extent of its blurring. At low (20 pixels) and intermediate (40 pixels) levels of blur and reduced exposure times (up to 100 or 50 ms), the relative accuracy of recognition falls (the effect of stroboscopic masking), but strong (60 pixels) blurring and the minimum time (50 ms) exposure increase the relative accuracy (stroboscopic effect of sensitization). Stroboscopic effect sensitization indicates partial similarity of the influence of real and apparent changes in facial expressions to recognition of the emotional expression.

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