Face perception across the adult lifespan: evidence for age-related changes independent of general intelligence.

It is well-documented that face perception - including facial expression and identity recognition ability - declines with age. To date, however, it is not yet well understood whether this age-related decline reflects face-specific effects, or instead can be accounted for by well-known declines in general intelligence. We examined this issue using a relatively large, healthy, age-diverse (18-88 years) sample (N = 595) who were assessed on well-established measures of face perception and general intelligence. Replicating previous work, we observed that facial expression recognition, facial identity recognition, and general intelligence all showed declines with age. Of importance, the age-related decline of expression and identity recognition was present even when the effects of general intelligence were statistically controlled. Moreover, facial expression and identity ability each showed significant unique associations with age. These results indicate that face perception ability becomes poorer as we age, and that this decline is to some extent relatively focal in nature. Results are in line with a hierarchical structure of face perception ability, and suggest that age appears to have independent effects on the general and specific face processing levels within this structure.

Consistent evidence of a link between Alexithymia and general intelligence.

Alexithymia is a personality construct characterised most notably by a difficulty in identifying and expressing feelings. Although the emotional difficulties in alexithymia are well established, to date little work has examined its relationship to broader cognitive abilities, such as general intelligence. Across three independent, healthy adult samples (Ns = 389, 318, & 273), we examined whether alexithymia was associated with general intelligence. In all three samples, we observed a significant negative association between alexithymia and general intelligence. In two of the samples, general intelligence was a significant predictor of alexithymia even when accounting for performance on tests of facial emotion recognition ability and supramodal emotion recognition ability (measured with faces, bodies, and voices). From a theoretical perspective, these results suggest that models of alexithymia need to incorporate a role for more generalised cognitive functioning. From a practical perspective, studies examining links between alexithymia and clinical disorders, many of which have known links to general intelligence, should consider including a measure of general intelligence in order to adjust for this potentially confounding factor.

Emotion recognition ability: Evidence for a supramodal factor and its links to social cognition.

Accurate recognition of others' emotions is an important skill for successful social interaction. Unsurprisingly, it has been an enduring topic of interest, and notable individual differences have been observed. Despite this focus, the underlying functional architecture of this ability has not been thoroughly investigated, particularly concerning emotion recognition across different sensory domains and stimulus modalities. Using a structural equation modelling approach, Study 1 (N = 284) established the structure of emotion recognition ability across three expressive domains - face, body and voice - and observed strong evidence for a superordinate 'supramodal' emotion recognition factor, over and above domain-specific factors. Additionally, we observed a significant moderate negative association between this superordinate factor and alexithymia. In Study 2 (N = 218), findings indicated that supramodal emotion recognition ability and face identity recognition are two related but independent constructs. In Study 3 (N = 249), we examined links from both supramodal emotion recognition and face identity recognition to broader cognitive ability, and observed that general intelligence was a significant predictor of supramodal emotion recognition ability. In contrast, there was no association between intelligence and face identity recognition ability. Across three independent samples, then, our findings offer strong support for an emotion recognition ability factor existing across visual and auditory domains encompassing social signals conveyed by face, body and voice, and outline its associations to broader cognitive and affective traits.

Sex differences in emotion recognition: Evidence for a small overall female superiority on facial disgust.

Although it is widely believed that females outperform males in the ability to recognize other people's emotions, this conclusion is not well supported by the extant literature. The current study sought to provide a strong test of the female superiority hypothesis by investigating sex differences in emotion recognition for five basic emotions using stimuli well-calibrated for individual differences assessment, across two expressive domains (face and body), and in a large sample (N = 1,022: Study 1). We also assessed the stability and generalizability of our findings with two independent replication samples (N = 303: Study 2, N = 634: Study 3). In Study 1, we observed that females were superior to males in recognizing facial disgust and sadness. In contrast, males were superior to females in recognizing bodily happiness. The female superiority for recognition of facial disgust was replicated in Studies 2 and 3, and this observation also extended to an independent stimulus set in Study 2. No other sex differences were stable across studies. These findings provide evidence for the presence of sex differences in emotion recognition ability, but show that these differences are modest in magnitude and appear to be limited to facial disgust. We discuss whether this sex difference may reflect human evolutionary imperatives concerning reproductive fitness and child care. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Recognition of facial expression and identity in part reflects a common ability, independent of general intelligence and visual short-term memory.

Recognising identity and emotion conveyed by the face is important for successful social interactions and has thus been the focus of considerable research. Debate has surrounded the extent to which the mechanisms underpinning face emotion and face identity recognition are distinct or share common processes. Here we use an individual differences approach to address this issue. In a well-powered (N = 605) and age-diverse sample we used structural equation modelling to assess the association between face emotion recognition and face identity recognition ability. We also sought to assess whether this association (if present) reflected visual short-term memory and/or general intelligence (g). We observed a strong positive correlation (r = .52) between face emotion recognition ability and face identity recognition ability. This association was reduced in magnitude but still moderate in size (r = .28) and highly significant when controlling for measures of g and visual short-term memory. These results indicate that face emotion and face identity recognition abilities in part share a common processing mechanism. We suggest that face processing ability involves multiple functional components and that modelling the sources of individual differences can offer an important perspective on the relationship between these components.