Psychology

Event Title

Empathy and Social Awareness Impact Detection of Change in Emotional Expression

Document Type

Poster Presentation

Location

Indianapolis, IN

Subject Area

Psychology

Start Date

11-4-2014 12:00 PM

End Date

11-4-2014 12:59 PM

Description

Change Blindness (CB) is an inability to detect changes in a visual stimulus. For example, Simons & Chabris (1999) used videotaped scenes depicting a gorilla walking across the screen, typically unnoticed by observers. The present research investigated blindness to changes in facial indications of emotion. Previous studies have shown that gradual changes of facial emotion produce substantial levels of CB when assessed by verbal report (David et al., 2006). The present research replicates those results and examines the relationship between empathy (sensitive to others' emotions), social awareness (cognizance of what is needed by others in a social situation), and CB. Experiment 1, using subjective reports of change detection, verified the three hypotheses of interest in this research: first, gradual changes in the facial emotion of an actor in a video were detected more frequently than gradual changes in a neutral stimulus (e.g., shirt color), and more often by participants who were more socially aware and empathetic; and, second, more overconfidence in their ability to detect changes was expressed, a priori, by participants who were least accurate in detecting changes in emotion. The use of eye-tracking equipment in a second experiment is expected to provide physiological verification for these results. Specifically, it is expected thatgradual changes in the facial emotion of an actor in a video will attract more gaze and fixation and be detected more frequently than gradual changes in a neutral stimulus (e.g., the color of a shirt).

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Apr 11th, 12:00 PM Apr 11th, 12:59 PM

Empathy and Social Awareness Impact Detection of Change in Emotional Expression

Indianapolis, IN

Change Blindness (CB) is an inability to detect changes in a visual stimulus. For example, Simons & Chabris (1999) used videotaped scenes depicting a gorilla walking across the screen, typically unnoticed by observers. The present research investigated blindness to changes in facial indications of emotion. Previous studies have shown that gradual changes of facial emotion produce substantial levels of CB when assessed by verbal report (David et al., 2006). The present research replicates those results and examines the relationship between empathy (sensitive to others' emotions), social awareness (cognizance of what is needed by others in a social situation), and CB. Experiment 1, using subjective reports of change detection, verified the three hypotheses of interest in this research: first, gradual changes in the facial emotion of an actor in a video were detected more frequently than gradual changes in a neutral stimulus (e.g., shirt color), and more often by participants who were more socially aware and empathetic; and, second, more overconfidence in their ability to detect changes was expressed, a priori, by participants who were least accurate in detecting changes in emotion. The use of eye-tracking equipment in a second experiment is expected to provide physiological verification for these results. Specifically, it is expected thatgradual changes in the facial emotion of an actor in a video will attract more gaze and fixation and be detected more frequently than gradual changes in a neutral stimulus (e.g., the color of a shirt).