Аннотация:We used composite facial expressions to explore the role of diagnostic features in upper and
lower half-faces in emotion discrimination. Stimuli were images of six basic emotional expressions
plus Neutral of a male poser (Ekman&Friesen, 1976), and 24 composites combining Happiness,
Anger and Fear in upper or lower face with other 5 expressions. These three expressions
concentrate their distinguishing features in a single half-face. Stimuli were presented in 930
concurrent pairs, each for 2000 ms. Eighteen participants rated pair wise similarity on a scale
from 1 to 9. Full matrices were processed with PROXSCAL multidimensional scaling program.
We retained a 5D solution (Stress=10.3%). D1 and D3 captured lower-face variations: D1
separated X-Happiness (smiling mouth) from other stimuli, with X-Disgust and X-Sadness
(closed mouth) at the other extreme; D3 opposed X-Anger (compressed mouth) and X-Fear,
X-Surprise (open mouth). Other dimensions were upper-face: D2 opposed Fear-X, Surprise-X
(wide-opened eyes) and other expressions; D4 separated Fear-X from Surprise-X, and Sadness-X
from others; D5 separated Anger-X from others. Similarity processing treated diagnostic facial
features as independent components. That is, the solution resolved into independent upper- and
lower- face sub-spaces, with little sign of holistic aspects for these expressions of complex, hardto-verbalise emotions.