HAPPY FACE ADVANTAGE IN RECOGNIZING FACIAL EXPRESSIONS

In this study, the origin of the happy face advantage was examined with respect to the mode of processing, as well as the spatial characteristics, of happy faces. In Experiments 1 and 2, happy and sad schematic faces of equal form deviations from a neutral face were adopted as stimuli, and the task of categorizing these two facial expressions was given to the subjects. Experiment 1 demonstrated that happy faces were recognized faster than sad faces only when they were presented as in an upright position: conversely the sad face advantage was observed to be slight when the stimuli were presented as inverted. The results of Experiment 2 showed that the pattern of recognition for happy faces differed in the right and left visual fields: the affect of inversion was much more pronounced when the happy faces were presented in the right visual field than when they were presented in the left visual field. From these results, it was assumed that while happy faces were likely to be recognized holistically, sad faces were likely to be recognized by analytic mode. This assumption was not rejected by the data from Experiment 3 where the uncontrolled happy and sad expressions on real faces were used as stimuli.