Remembering who was where: A happy expression advantage for face identity-location binding in working memory

Sara Spotorno; Megan Evans; Margaret C Jackson

doi:10.1037/xlm0000522

Remembering who was where: A happy expression advantage for face identity-location binding in working memory

Sara Spotorno, Megan Evans, Margaret C Jackson

Psychology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)

16 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

It is well established that visual working memory (WM) for face identity is enhanced when faces display threatening versus nonthreatening expressions. During social interaction, it is also important to bind person identity with location information in WM to remember who was where, but we lack a clear understanding of how emotional expression influences this. Here, we conducted two touchscreen experiments to investigate how angry versus happy expressions displayed at encoding influenced the precision with which participants relocated a single neutral test face to its original position. Maintenance interval was manipulated (Experiment 2; 1 s, 3 s, 6 s) to assess durability of binding. In both experiments, relocation accuracy was enhanced when faces were happy versus angry, and this happy benefit endured from 1-s to 6-s maintenance interval. Eye movement measures during encoding showed no convincing effects of oculomotor behavior that could readily explain the happy benefit. However, accuracy in general was improved, and the happy benefit was strongest for the last, most recent face fixated at encoding. Improved, durable binding of who was where in the presence of a happy expression may reflect the importance of prosocial navigation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1365-1383
Number of pages	18
Journal	Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition
Volume	44
Issue number	9
Early online date	19 Apr 2018
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000522 https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000522
Publication status	Published - Sept 2018

Bibliographical note

This research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council
(ESRC), Grant ES/L008912/1 to Margaret C. Jackson.

Keywords

faces
maintenance
emotional expression
visuospatial working memory
eye movements

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10.1037/xlm0000522Licence: CC BY
10.1037/xlm0000522Licence: Unspecified

Remembering who was where A happy expression advantage for face identity-location binding in working memory
This article has been published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Copyright for this article is retained by the author(s). Author(s) grant(s) the American Psychological Association the exclusive right to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher.
Final published version, 1.07 MBLicence: CC BY

Margaret C Jackson
- Psychology, Psychology - Senior Lecturer
Person: Academic

Cite this

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abstract = "It is well established that visual working memory (WM) for face identity is enhanced when faces display threatening versus nonthreatening expressions. During social interaction, it is also important to bind person identity with location information in WM to remember who was where, but we lack a clear understanding of how emotional expression influences this. Here, we conducted two touchscreen experiments to investigate how angry versus happy expressions displayed at encoding influenced the precision with which participants relocated a single neutral test face to its original position. Maintenance interval was manipulated (Experiment 2; 1 s, 3 s, 6 s) to assess durability of binding. In both experiments, relocation accuracy was enhanced when faces were happy versus angry, and this happy benefit endured from 1-s to 6-s maintenance interval. Eye movement measures during encoding showed no convincing effects of oculomotor behavior that could readily explain the happy benefit. However, accuracy in general was improved, and the happy benefit was strongest for the last, most recent face fixated at encoding. Improved, durable binding of who was where in the presence of a happy expression may reflect the importance of prosocial navigation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)",

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Remembering who was where: A happy expression advantage for face identity-location binding in working memory

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Margaret C Jackson

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