How does self-relevance impact perceptual decision-making about uncertain emotional expressions? Diffusion modeling applied to experimental data M El Zein, V Wyart, J Grèzes |
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Laboratoire des Neurosciences Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure INSERM U960, France
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| The ability to correctly decode others’ emotional expressions and to rapidly and accurately select the most relevant course of action bears survival advantages. Such ability depends not only on the proper identification of the emitted signal, often complex or ambiguous under natural settings, but also on the evaluation of its significance for the observer. Particularly, an angry face is more relevant when looking towards an observer who becomes the target of the threat, whereas a fearful face looking away from the observer may signal a potential threat in the periphery. Here, we aim to identify the mechanisms underlying decision-making about facial expressions of emotions and the impact of self-relevance on these mechanisms. We manipulated parametrically the intensity of emotional expressions and their self-relevance (direct or averted gaze) during a fear-anger categorization task. We applied diffusion-to-bound models on the behavioral data to determine: 1) whether decisions made upon emotional content are formed by continuously accumulating sensory evidence, and 2) how self-relevance alters decision-making, either by influencing the accumulation rate or by adjusting the decision bound. Our preliminary data suggest that self-relevance biases decisions by shifting the decision bound in response-selective, not stimulus-selective structures. |
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