ABSTRACT
Objective To explore the gender and cultural differences in emotional memory of college students and whether they have memory preferences for emotional pictures with different valence.Methods Using the learning-recognition paradigm,fifty-four Tibetan and Han students were asked to recognize the emotional face images of different valence.The reaction time and accuracy of the subjects were recorded and analyzed.Results (1) The reaction times of the Tibetan and Han subjects were (1 808.28±528.45) ms and (1 508.27±455.37)ms,the main effect of national type was significant (F(1,50)=5.826,P＜0.05).The main effect of emotional picture valence was significant (F(2,100)=6.997,P＜0.05),the reaction time of negative pictures ((1 568.90 ± 534.45) ms) was significantly shorter than that of the positive picture ((1 684.08±476.24) ms) and neural pictures ((1 738.51 ± 528.73) ms).(2) On the accuracy rate,the main effect of emotional picture valence was significant (F(2,49)=29.56,P＜0.05).The accuracy of negative images ((78.83±8.55) ％) was significantly higher than that of the positive ((73.41 ±9.66) ％) and neutral picture ((67.96 ± 9.64) ％).(3) For Tibetan subjects,the accuracy of positive picture ((77.46 ± 8.48)％) was significantly higher than that of positive ((70.89±8.83)％) and neutral pictures ((67.32± 8.70) ％),the main effect of emotional picture valence was significant (F(2.52)=14.891,P＜0.05).(4) For Han subjects,,the response time of negative images ((1 359.89±365.58) ms) was significantly shorter than that of positive ((1 549.93±434.60) ms) and neutral pictures ((1 615.01±528.77) ms),the main effect of emotional picture valence was significant (F(2,48)=9.758,P＜0.05).The accuracy of negative images ((80.31±8.53)％) was significantly higher than that of neutral ((68.65±10.70)％) and positive images ((76.12±9.94)％),and the main effect of emotional picture valence was significant (F(2,48) =15.359,P＜ 0.05).Conclusion National culture and emotional valence affect the emotional memory of the Tibetan and Han students.Both Tibetan and Han students have obvious "negative bias" on the recognition of emotional images,but they have different characteristics.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: Previous studies have shown the relationship between recognition of facial expressions and psychiatric symptoms. This study investigated how healthy young adults recognize neutral faces and which psychological distresses and symptoms relate to their recognition of neutral faces. METHODS: One hundred forty-three healthy volunteers participated in this study. We used neutral facial pictures, selected from the Japanese and Caucasian Facial Expressions of Emotion (JACFEE) photo set, to evaluate participants' facial expression recognition and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory, Toronto Alexithymia Scale, Conner-Davidson Resilience Scale, and Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) to measure and examine their psychological characteristics. RESULTS: There were significant positive correlations between the recognition rate of neutral expressions as contempt and trait-anxiety level (r=0.21 ; p=0.01) and depression (r=0.20 ; p=0.02). This contempt-recognition was significantly negatively correlated with resilience score (r=-0.22 ; p=0.01) and the TCI self-directedness subscale (r=-0.29 ; p=0.00). Also, the TCI's harm avoidance subscale score was significantly positively correlated with the contempt recognition rate (r=0.21 ; p=0.01). CONCLUSION: These finding suggests recognition of neutral faces as contempt may be related to psychological distress, including trait and temperament characteristics. This negative bias toward neutral emotion (expressions) may affect interpersonal relations and social functioning in a healthy population.