Cognitive Psychology - Facial Expression and Recognition - Lab Report Example

Cognitive Psychology - Facial Expression and Recognition Abstract The human body is made ups of many organs which are important in the operation of undertaking normal body functions. The eye is one such important organ that is used in visual interpretation. This essay explores the task of face recognition through the use of sensory nerves and functions located in the eye. The major theme explored here is that of holistic processing of facial identity through the integration of facial features to come up with a unified perceptual representation. From different researches conducted, it is easy to conclude that the right hemisphere of the brain is superior in the task of holistic processing compared to the left hemisphere. However, to prove or disapprove this assertion could only be achieved through the use of experiments. The experiments will involve making use of independent and dependent variables. In this case we take a look into dependant variables such as accuracy and response time (Galotti, 2010). The experiments will be meant to study facial expression and recognition in relation to stimuli and perceptions brought about by the eye. The experiments looked into the factor of inverse efficiency in the process of undertaking holistic processing. Introduction The Eye is a sensitive part of the body that makes use of optical nerves in the perception of facial identity and expression. The eye has been studied with the purpose of finding out how the brain functions it the course of understanding holistic processing. Some scientists have argued that holistic processing is mainly biased since the right hemisphere tends to undertake most of the duties in the process of holistic processing. The issue of holistic processing in relation to eye expression and recognition is analyzed through the use of an experiment. For instance, configural information is related to the facial expression as to the position of many parts of the face. Facial recognition and expression differ depending on the situations and perceptions differ based on different people and perceptions. Experiments are carried out to show the relationship between facial expression and recognition through the use of stimuli. Stimuli in most case are produced by distorting images and facial expressions in the experiment process. The distortion of the face by jumbling up different faces to come up with one face is important in analysing the two factors of facial expression and recognition as outlined below. Method The method deployed in the research process includes making use of participants who are contacted to undertake the study. The participants in the case of this experiment will include people from different sexes and ages to come up with conclusive results. During the experiment several procedures will be used such as using composites whereby for instance the top part of the face is aligned and an expression is assigned to this part of the face (Quinlan, 2008). For example, the top part of the face may display an expression that is well known and this may be distorted when the bottom part of the face displays another emotion. By making use of different models and different combinations we can be able to produce several numbers of stimuli. In this experiment we try to test different expressions by making use of the computer (Galotti, 2010). These facial expressions are important in understanding if the participants can make out the differences in the facial expression swiftly. The following experiment was undertaken with the purpose of studying the relation between facial expression and recognition in terms of perception. Participants: In this study, we had to gather over 30 participants who were made of 18 women with a mean age of 27 years. However, the participation size was reduced to 24 people since the results of 6 people were found inconclusive. As a result, the actual participation size was made up of 15 women and 9 men. These people were familiar with people who were used in the depiction of the stimuli. Stimuli: The images of 40 people were taken and processed using Photoshop and their images were cropped and displayed in greyscale. The tops and bottoms halves of the faces of the stimuli were evenly matched for the purpose of coming up with many 80 composite faces. The faces were misaligned so that the face recognition would take up some time. The sets of faces were misaligned to ensure that so that the combinations would be numerous. The alignment was misaligned while the visual field was configured to the left and right. The expression was undertaken in the form of top and bottom whereby the distortions were undertaken. The uses of the greyscale in representing the images were done so that people could not engage in colour matching in identifying with different subjects or people (Eysenck, 2005). Procedure: The procedure used in the representation was through use of stimuli display on the PC screens. The stimuli were presented on a white background because of the use of the greyscale in image representation. The PC monitor that was used in this case had a refresh rate of 60Hz with a resolution of 1280 * 1024 pixel resolution. The distance between the distorted images and the participants was set to 50 cm. The participants were also placed in a dark room while they were given some random samples to start with their examination. The top and bottom blocks were used in placing the images halves of the photos. In some cases, the top images were not changed while the bottom halves were changed routinely. Results The above experiments were used in deciding the extent to which some factors affect the process of holistic processing. The main factor that was to be analyzed was inverse efficiency and this is in relation to alignment and visual field. In the results of the inverse efficiency we take a look at alignment where there were no major changes to the field. Moreover, in the experiment we were able to conclude that there were significant relations that existed between alignment of the images and the visual field. The effect of alignment between the two factors was measured in relation to inverse efficiency using the ANOVA test. The result that will give us the difference between alignments figures in the analysis of the holistic processing (Balota, 2004). The images were sampled with replacement through the averaging related differences in the inverse efficiency per visual field across all participants. From the experiments, we witness that there were significant differences in the alignment per visual field. This is because the experiment was repeated several times (Kellogg, 2003). Inverse efficiency scores were used in determining the better scores from the left or right visual. Most of the scores obtained from the experiment show that the relation of the two most important variables used in deducing inverse efficiency were not accurate. However, using Calder research on facial expression we come up with different results for measuring facial expression and recognition. Facial expression is important in the undertaking of the results above (Quinlan, 2008). The experiment on holistic processing made use of different emotions with the aim of coming up with prudent facia processing. The main purpose of the experiment was to affirm if the notion that the right hemisphere is well suited for processing facial expression and recognition. Some of the emotions that were on display included happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust and surprise. In the processing tasks, we came up with results that a lot of errors occurred during the processing stage. The emotions of anger, fear and sadness were displayed on the top half of the face. While on the bottom half of the face, happiness and disgust were recognizable. The task of recognizing the image was done by the participants choosing the stimuli type. In most of the experiments, there were numerous errors but the accuracy speed cannot be factored in coming up with error margins. The error margins in the result were brought about the nature of the experiment especially in processing composite images (Eysenck, 2005). This is because these images were distorted and combined in a manner that took time in image processing. The reaction time in such experiments took time and this led to numerous errors on the part of the participants. Thus, few results of participants were used in coming up with conclusive report. While in some case the images were inverted so that facial recognition could be tested conclusively. However, it is prudent to note that the results confirmed that the right hemisphere is better at holistic processing compared to the left hemisphere. Discussion The experiment was conducted with the main purpose of finding out the good measures of holistic processing. Holistic processing in this sense looks into the face recognition and perception in relation to the facial expressions. Previous researches and experiments conducted on this field have shown that the process of holistic processing is mainly conducted within the right visual with the right eye being used for processing. Greater holistic processing in the right hemisphere compared to the left has all to do with greater advantage of stimuli being presented in the right hemisphere. The experiment above shows that various factors affect the tasks of face recognition and expression in the process of undertaking conversations. For instance, the lower part of the face which is used for communication is least recognized by people. But in many circumstances when the two factors are combined with verbal expressions then facial expression and recognition becomes easy (Kellogg, 2003). The results of the experiment depended heavily on the factors such as accuracy and speed. When measuring inverse effectiveness it is important to ensure that we make use of grey scaled stimuli and short durations for the project tasks. The use of lateralized stimulation does not prohibit against the transfer of information to the brain. The task of undertaking the lateralization process does not require the use of greyscale or colour. The output of any system could be used in through holistic representations or representations which are bi-lateral of contra-lateral (Balota, 2004). Capabilities of accessing each hemisphere in isolation or through processing in each different hemisphere among people are challenging. Holistic processing could be undertaken using varied forms of facial expression. In these instances, the brain will take time to recognize differences in expression if similar expressions are used. For instance, if two happy facial expressions belonging to different people are distorted then the brain can process the composite expression as happy. However, the brain through the right hemisphere might recognize that both distorted faces are not similar. This experiment re-affirms the thoughts and research undertaken by Calder in the field of cognitive psychology (Kellogg, 2003). Composite figures tend to tap on configural processing since the objects are arranged to come up with a composite face with one expression. In the process of making out the faces of the subjects used in the images, the participants were engaged in using the different facial expressions. However, none of them used these expressions in the task of facial recognition. Due to this we can conclude that facial expressions are processed in terms of their configural make-up (Galotti, 2010). For instance, the position of the mouth, nose or mouth in displaying emotions is coded according to each participant. It is also true to conclude that making use of different facial expressions can be used in coming up with one composite expression. In this case, we can use different expression to come with one totally new expression. Conclusion The art of cognitive psychology through the use of facial expression and recognition in social communication is important. Various factors affect facial recognition and expression as outlined in study of psychology. The eye is used in discerning facial expressions and recognition. In the essay above, an experiment was conducted with the aim of finding out if the right hemisphere is superior in holistic processing. Form the results of the experiment, we found out that it is true that right hemisphere can discern emotions quicker than the left hemisphere. The participants in this research were taken through different images with the aim of discerning the true fact on cognitive psychology. References Balota, D. & Marsh, E. (2004). Cognitive psychology: Key readings. London: MacMillan Books. Eysenck, M. & Keane, M. (2005). Cognitive psychology: A student's handbook. Chicago, IL: Pelshiver. Galotti, K. (2010). Cognitive Psychology: In and Out of the Laboratory. New York: Alden Publishing. Kellogg, R. (2003). Cognitive psychology. Lowell, MA: John Wiley and Sons. Quinlan, P. & Dyson, B. (2008). Cognitive Psychology. Boston, MA: John Wiley and Sons. Read More