The Impact and Intervention of the Approach-Avoidance Tendencies on the Ensemble Coding of Emotional Facial Expressions in a Crowd

Lai Tingting; Zhu Wujing; Lin Zengzhen; Wang Xiaoqin; Jia Lei

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240501

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2024, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (5) : 1026-1035. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240501

General Psychology，Experimental Psychology & Ergonomics

The Impact and Intervention of the Approach-Avoidance Tendencies on the Ensemble Coding of Emotional Facial Expressions in a Crowd

Lai Tingting, Zhu Wujing, Lin Zengzhen, Wang Xiaoqin, Jia Lei

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Abstract

Previous studies have investigated the approach-avoidance response to emotional faces and the processing characteristics of facial emotional ensemble coding as separate entities. However, there is a lack of research that has integrated these two aspects to explore the potential influence of approach-avoidance tendencies, induced by the same set of emotional facial expressions on facial expression ensemble encoding. To address this research gap, we conducted two logically progressive experiments by combining the classic approach-avoidance task with the emotional facial expression ensemble task. The goal was to investigate the potential impact of emotional approach-avoidance tendencies on the ensemble coding of facial emotions. Furthermore, we aimed to explore whether the motivational dimensions of emotional stimuli modulate the ensemble coding of facial emotions from the perspective of motivational orientation theory.
The experiment was programmed using Presentation software (Neurobehavioral Systems Inc.) and presented on a 21-inch Dell monitor. Experiment 1 employed a 2 (emotional valence: positive vs negative) × 2 (motivational orientation: approach vs. avoidance) within-subjects design. The dependent variable was the mean error value of face emotion ensemble coding ($\mathrm{ME}=\frac{\sum \text { |test-mean }}{n}$). The positive or negative faces were presented in two ways: approaching and withdrawing. Participants were instructed to perceive the mean emotion of the group faces. They were then asked to use the mouse wheel to adjust the emotion of the test face to match the mean emotion of the group faces. Experiment 2 was simplified based on the results of Experiment 1. The positive faces from the ensemble coding task in Experiment 1 were discarded. A 2 (group: experimental group vs. control group) × 2 (motivational orientation: approach vs. avoidance) two-factor mixed design was used in Experiment 2. This experiment consisted of four phases: an emotional state pre-test, a sentence arrangement task, an emotional state post-test, and a group face ensemble coding task. The “experimental group-control group” design was adopted, and different sentence arrangement tasks were set up before the face emotion ensemble coding task. This was done to test whether implicit emotion regulation strategies could reduce the influence of negative avoidance tendencies on face emotion ensemble coding.
The results of Experiment 1 revealed a significant interaction between emotional valence and motivational orientation in the face emotional ensemble coding task (p < .05). Further analysis showed that the error in coding negative faces in the approach condition was significantly higher than in the avoidance condition. Additionally, the average error in ensemble coding for negative faces in the avoidance condition was significantly lower than for positive faces. In Experiment 2, the results showed a significant interaction between group and motivational orientation (p < .01). The simple effect analysis indicated that there was no significant difference in the mean error between the approach and avoidance conditions in the experimental group. However, in the control group, the mean error in the approach condition was significantly higher than in the avoidance condition, which was consistent with the findings in Experiment 1. Moreover, the mean error in approach conditions in the control group was significantly higher than that in the experimental group.
In conclusion, this study provides evidence that emotional avoidance tendency has an impact on face emotion ensemble coding, while a cognitive reappraisal strategy can eliminate this effect. It supports the motivational orientation theory and challenges the event coding theory. Furthermore, it highlights the significant influence of the motivational dimension of emotional stimuli on emotion perception. The key conclusions are as follows: (1) Negative avoidance tendencies can affect the ensemble coding of emotional faces and induce perceptual biases. (2) Implicit cognitive reappraisal can reduce negative avoidance tendency and regulate its influence on the ensemble coding of emotional faces.

Key words

ensemble coding / emotion in facial crowd / the approach-avoidance tendency / emotion regulation

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Lai Tingting, Zhu Wujing, Lin Zengzhen, Wang Xiaoqin, Jia Lei. The Impact and Intervention of the Approach-Avoidance Tendencies on the Ensemble Coding of Emotional Facial Expressions in a Crowd[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2024, 47(5): 1026-1035 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240501

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