Emotion congruence in the perception of ambiguous facial expressions

Emotion congruence in emotion perception is manifested in increasing sensitivity to the emotions corresponding to the perceiver’s emotional state. In this study, an experimental procedure that robustly generates emotion congruence during the perception of ambiguous facial expressions has been developed. It was hypothesized that emotion congruence will be stronger in the early stages of perception. In two experiments, happiness and sadness were elicited in 69 (mean age 20.2, 57 females) and 58 (mean age 18.2, 50 females) participants. Then they determined what emotions were present in the ambiguous faces. The duration of stimulus presentation varied for the analysis of earlier and later stages of perception. The effect of emotion congruence was obtained in both experiments: happy participants perceived more happiness and less sadness in ambiguous facial expression compared to sad participants. Stimulus duration did not influence emotion congruence. Further studies should focus on the juxtaposition of the models connecting the emotion congruence mechanisms either with perception or with response generation.

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