Does facial redness really affect emotion perception? Evidence for limited generalisability of effects of facial redness on emotion perception in a large sample
- 30 September 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis Ltd in Cognition and Emotion
- Vol. 35 (8), 1607-1617
- https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2021.1979473
Abstract
We conducted a preregistered study (N = 609) to conceptually replicate and extend prior research regarding the effects of facial redness on emotion perception. In a within-subjects design, participants saw emotion faces (anger, happiness, fear, neutral) of a random female and a random male target with default facial colouration and increased facial redness and were asked to simultaneously rate the intensity of six emotions (happiness, surprise, sadness, fear, disgust, anger) for each emotion face. The emotion intensity was rated higher, when the emotion face and the rated emotion matched than when the emotion face and the rated emotion did not match. However, increased facial redness did not influence the intensity of the rated emotion. The results of this conceptual replication limit the generalisability of previous findings, challenge the assumption that facial redness is used as a cue to infer emotions, and point to the necessity to develop a more nuanced theoretical account of contextual boundaries.Keywords
This publication has 45 references indexed in Scilit:
- The Emotional Eye: Red Sclera as a Uniquely Human Cue of EmotionEthology, 2013
- Oxygenated-Blood Colour Change Thresholds for Perceived Facial Redness, Health, and AttractivenessPLOS ONE, 2011
- Bare skin, blood and the evolution of primate colour visionBiology Letters, 2006
- The effect of expressing anger on cardiovascular reactivity and facial blood flow in Chinese and CaucasiansPsychophysiology, 2001
- Core affect, prototypical emotional episodes, and other things called emotion: Dissecting the elephant.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1999
- The number of discernible coloursColor Research & Application, 1998
- The effect of adrenergic blockade on blushing and facial flushingPsychophysiology, 1997
- The effect of anger and pleasure on facial blood flowAustralian Journal of Psychology, 1994
- A circumplex model of affect.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1980
- On the social psychology of the psychological experiment: With particular reference to demand characteristics and their implications.American Psychologist, 1962