1. Participants
Males=54, Females=146, Total=200
31 females and 10 males scored low on happiness, 115 females and 44
males scored high on happiness.
Stimuli
• Two computer generated neutral faces of a male and a female who
were similar in facial features.
• Hypothetical situations were created and participants rated how
likely the person pictured would be to cooperate in the given
scenario.
• 6-item assessment of depression and happiness
Procedure
• Participants viewed still frames of a neutral face of a male and
female on a computer monitor.
• Upon presentation of each stimulus was a question that consisted of
a hypothetical scenario such as ‘Pretend this person is your boss and
you have just asked for a raise’. Participants were asked to rate the
likelihood of the person cooperating with a request based on the
face shown. For example, ‘how likely is this person to comply with
your request for a raise?’
• Participants indicated likelihood of cooperation on a 7-point scale
(1=Unlikely to 7=Very likely). Participants were unknowingly timed,
giving them 250 seconds for each response to test difficulty of
perceiving the face.
• Participants then completed a 6-item rapid assessment of
depression and happiness (SHDS; Linley, Harwood, Lewis &
McCollam, 2004). For example, ‘I felt dissatisfied with life.’
Responses were on a 4-point scale (1=Never and 4=Daily). Higher
scores indicate a greater sense of depression. A median split was
used to categorize participants as depressed or not.
Mean ratings and reaction times were calculated for each condition.
Means were submitted to a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA).
The MANOVA revealed no significant effects, all p’s > .05.
There were no significant differences in ratings of cooperation (FACE
RATING) and the rating times (MTIME) of participants.
Poster created by the Office of Research
Methodology
Biases in Perceiving Neutral Faces: Effects of Depression and Gender
Shytance Wren
Dr. Jeannette Stein, Faculty Advisor
Psychology Department
Background
Results indicated that there were no significant differences. The results
show no evidence of depression biases in recognizing neutral faces. This
point runs counter to prior studies of depression biases (Leppanen et al,
2004; McKeeff & Tong, 2006; 2007). The Depression-Happiness scale
may not have been effective at differentiating depressed students from
non-depressed students. The measure was more reflective of happiness
and did not assess actual depression. Both genders’ happiness levels
were relatively the same. College students at University of Michigan-Flint
may have been relatively more happy than other population
groups. Because the survey was distributed online, the students who
chose to participate may have been generally better prepared, more
motivated, or more interested in the subject matter. The results could
have been affected to favor those students. Future research may be
directed at recruiting from a more diverse participant pool. A better
measure of depression should be used or participants that have been
diagnosed with depression should be recruited.
Results
References
Adams, J.,Reginald B., Nelson, A. J., Soto, J. A., Hess, U., & Kleck, R. E. (2012).
Emotion in the neutral face: A mechanism for impression formation? Cognition
& Emotion, 26(3), 431-441.
Joseph, S., Linley, P. A., Harwood, J., Lewis, C. A., & McCollam, P. (2004). Rapid
assessment of well-being: The short depression-happiness scale (SDHS).
Psychology and Psychotherapy, 77(Pt 4), 463-478.
doi:10.1348/1476083042555406
Leppänen, J. M., Milders, M., Bell, J. S., Terriere, E., & Hietanen, J. K. (2004).
Depression biases the recognition of emotionally neutral faces. Psychiatry
Research, 128(2), 123-133.
McKeeff, T. J., & Tong, F. (2007; 2006). The timing of perceptual decisions for
ambiguous face stimuli in the human ventral visual cortex. Cerebral Cortex,
17(3), 669-678
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Dr. Jeannette Stein for her help, interest and expertise
with this study and UM-Flint’s Office of Research for printing this poster.
It is difficult for the brain to perceive incoming sensory signals that are
ambiguous; thus leading to longer response times to reach a perceptual
decision (McKeeff & Tong, 2006). Neutral faces are distinctively harder to
draw conclusions of emotional states from especially when the observer is
depressed. This could make evaluating situations particularly difficult for
those that are depressed. For example, Leppanen et al. (2004) found that,
when perceiving faces, depressed patients not only provided more false
sad responses, but also more false happy responses than the controls.
The gender associated with the perceived expression may also affect
evaluation. Adams and colleagues (2012) had participants rate computer
screenings of face warped pictures of men and women. The neutral female
faces were rated as more submissive, affiliative, naive, honest, cooperative,
babyish, fearful, happy, and less angry than neutral male faces.
Together these findings suggest that depression and the gender related to
the perceived expression may impact the evaluation of neutral facial
expressions. The purpose of this study was to determine if depression plays
a role in reaction times and perception of the neutral facial expressions of
both males and females in different contexts. It was hypothesized that
male and female faces would be perceived differently, participants who are
depressed would take longer to interpret the expressions and would
perceive faces more negatively.
Male with neutral expression Female with neutral expression
Conclusion