Reconstruction of a fragment of the perceptual space of emotional facial expressions

Context and relevance. The current work continues the studies of the perceived relations of emotional facial expressions. Objective. The aim of the research is to reconstruct the perceptual space of basic emotions and transitional expressions between them. The direct comparison paradigm was tested to reconstruct the perceptual space of transitional emotional rows that form a closed figure. Three transitional rows were used. Hypothesis. It was suggested to obtain a two-dimensional model corresponding to a triangle with basic emotions on the vertices, and the transitional expressions located linearly on the edges. Methods and materials. 40 people (M = 21.4 years) took part in the experiment. During the procedure participants rated the degree of expressions similarity on a scale from 1 to 9, where 9 means “very similar”. Results. The assumed two-dimensional triangle model was reconstructed using multidimensional scaling. It was shown that the direct comparison task can be used to create a complete space of emotional expressions. Conclusions. The observed violations of linearity are explained in terms of perceptual magnetic effect. The calculated resolving power of the method can be used to increase the accuracy of reconstruction quality assessment. Prospects for further research aimed at creating a complete space by connecting reconstructed triangles of transitional rows of emotional facial expressions are presented.

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