Article

The current study examined the nature of deficits in emotion recognition from
facial expressions in case LG, an individual with a rare form of developmental
visual agnosia (DVA). LG presents with profoundly impaired recognition of facial
expressions, yet the underlying nature of his deficit remains unknown. During
typical face processing, normal sighted individuals extract information about
expressed emotions from face regions with activity diagnostic for specific
emotion categories. Given LG's impairment, we sought to shed light on his emotion
perception by examining if priming facial expressions with diagnostic emotional
face components would facilitate his recognition of the emotion expressed by the
face. LG and control participants matched isolated face components with
components appearing in a subsequently presented full-face and then categorized
the face's emotion. Critically, the matched components were from regions which
were diagnostic or non-diagnostic of the emotion portrayed by the full face. In
experiment 1, when the full faces were briefly presented (150ms), LG's
performance was strongly influenced by the diagnosticity of the components: his
emotion recognition was boosted within normal limits when diagnostic components
were used and was obliterated when non-diagnostic components were used. By
contrast, in experiment 2, when the face-exposure duration was extended (2000ms),
the beneficial effect of the diagnostic matching was diminished as was the
detrimental effect of the non-diagnostic matching. These data highlight the
impact of diagnostic facial features in normal expression recognition and suggest
that impaired emotion recognition in DVA results from deficient visual
integration across diagnostic face components.
CI - Copyright A(c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS