Featural evaluation, integration, and judgment of facial affect.

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Abstract
The paradigm of the fuzzy logical model of perception (FLMP) is extended to the domain of perception and recognition of facial affect. Two experiments were performed using a highly realistic computer-generated face varying on 2 features of facial affect. Each experiment used the same expanded factorial design, with 5 levels of brow deflection crossed with 5 levels of mouth deflection, as well as their corresponding half-face conditions, for a total stimulus set of 35 faces. Experiment 1 used a 2-alternative, forced-choice paradigm (either happy or angry), whereas Experiment 2 used 9 rating steps from happy to angry. Results indicate that participants evaluated and integrated information from both features to perceive affective expressions. Both choice probabilities and ratings showed that the influence of 1 feature was greater to the extent that the other feature was ambiguous. The FLMP fit the judgments from both experiments significantly better than an additive model. Our results question previous claims of categorical and hollstic perception of affect. The ability of organisms to perceive and identify displays of arousal of conspecifics seems ubiquitous in vertebrates and even in some invertebrates (i.e., squid, octopi, etc.). The face, of course, displays an informative signature of an organism's emotional state that is processed efficiently by cohorts. Brown and Dooling (1993) presented to parakeets images of scrambled and normal parakeet faces as stimuli. An important affective facial feature that parakeets can discriminate is the size of the iris. Male parakeets constrict the iris as part of their courtship displays to females, whereas the iris of a calm male parakeet is fairly large. Brown and Dooling (1993, Experiment 3) showed that female birds can indeed discriminate stimuli that differ only in pupil size. More important, they also determined that individual facial features could signal significant biological information, such as sex, age, or emotional arousal. These features were discriminated more quickly, and hence were more "perceptually salient," than features that could not provide this information. The processing of affect is particularly well developed in

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