Journal article

Publication year: 2016

Journal: Scientific Reports

Volume number: 6

ISSN: 2045-2322

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1038/srep34301

Publisher: Nature Research

Abstract: 
Facial movements convey information about many social cues, including identity. However, how much information about a person's identity is conveyed by different kinds of facial movements is unknown. We addressed this question using a recent motion capture and animation system, with which we animated one avatar head with facial movements of three types: (1) emotional, (2) emotional in social interaction and (3) conversational, all recorded from several actors. In a delayed match-to-sample task, observers were best at matching actor identity across conversational movements, worse with emotional movements in social interactions, and at chance level with emotional facial expressions. Model observers performing this task showed similar performance profiles, indicating that performance variation was due to differences in information content, rather than processing. Our results suggest that conversational facial movements transmit more dynamic identity information than emotional facial expressions, thus suggesting different functional roles and processing mechanisms for different types of facial motion.

Harvard Citation style: Dobs, K., Bülthoff, I. and Schultz, J. (2016) Identity information content depends on the type of facial movement, Scientific Reports, 6, Article 34301. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep34301

APA Citation style: Dobs, K., Bülthoff, I., & Schultz, J. (2016). Identity information content depends on the type of facial movement. Scientific Reports. 6, Article 34301. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep34301