- Email: [email protected]
Lateral bias in chimpanzee expressions of facial emotion
News & Comment
TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences Vol.6 No.9 September 2002
369
Journal Club
Lateral bias in chimpanzee expressions of facial emotion In humans, the left hemiface is generally found to be more emotionally expressive than the right, a finding consistent with innervation by the right cerebral hemisphere, which is dominant for emotional behaviour. Similar asymmetries documented in nonhuman primates suggest evolutionary precursors to brain laterality in emotional expression. A recent study by FernandezCarriba et al. [1] examined facial expression of emotion in another highly social species with a rich repertoire of facial expressions, our closest relative, the chimpanzee. Facial asymmetry was examined in spontaneous facial expressions produced by a sample of 36 chimpanzees who were videotaped engaging in natural social
interactions. The collected images were categorized so that five common facial expressions were represented: panthooting, play face, silent pout, scream face, and bared-teeth display. The best images were then selected for each category so that, where possible, a clean, head-on stimulus was acquired. Objective measures involved quantifying the left and right hemimouth length and area for each facial expression. There was a significant leftward asymmetry for most facial expressions; that is, the length, area or both, deviated significantly to the left. This asymmetry was apparently not influenced by demographic variables such as the age, sex or handedness. As additional evidence,
human judgments of chimpanzee chimeric hemifaces also revealed a preference asymmetry: overall, subjects chose the left–left composites as the most emotionally intense. Both the objective and subjective measures indicated a greater involvement of the left hemiface in the production of facial expressions of emotion in chimpanzees, suggesting that chimpanzees, like humans, show a right hemisphere specialization for facial expression.
near the old airport showed improvements in memory and reading, but not speech perception. KR
Male applicants only!
1 Fernandez-Carriba, S. et al. (2002) Asymmetry in facial expression of emotions by chimpanzees. Neuropsychologia 40, 1523–1533
Fiona Lyddy [email protected]
In Brief
Airport noise affects cognitive development
Do you want the good news or the bad?
Noisy aeroplanes taking off and landing can be detrimental to your child’s performance at school. A recent study has shown that airport noise can impair long- and shortterm memory, reading and speech perception in schoolchildren [Hugge et al. Psychol. Sci. 13 (in press)]. The researchers took advantage of the change in airport locations occurring in Munich. They recruited children who lived near the old airport site and the new airport site as well as a control group who experienced no airport noise. Before and after the switch over of the airports the children carried out cognitive performance tests. After the switch had occurred, the children living near the new airport showed a marked decline in memory, reading and speech perception skills. By contrast, the children who lived http://tics.trends.com
It often seems that the newspapers are full of bad news. A recent study proves this to be true in the case of medical research. Christopher Bartlett and colleagues at the University of Bristol examined all original research articles published in the Lancet and the British Medical Journal in 1999 and 2000 [Bartlett, C. et al. (2002) BMJ 325, 81–84]. They recorded which articles were chosen by the journals for press release, and which articles were subsequently reported in The Times and The Sun newspapers. Although good and bad news were equally likely to be chosen for press release from specialist medical journals, the bad news was more likely to make it into the newspapers. Results from randomised controlled trials, which provide the strongest evidence, were also under-reported in the newspapers; instead, the newspapers tended to report results of observational studies that are more prone to bias. The first concern of newspaper editors is to sell papers; however, the authors of this study argue that they should also consider their duty to the public to communicate scientific research responsibly. HJB
Next time you have a job interview be careful about what kind of perfume you choose to wear. Apparently, you are more likely to be successful if you wear a ‘masculine’ fragrance [Sczesny and Stahlberg Eur. J. Social Psychol. (in press)]. Sczesny and Stalberg conducted an experiment where male and female participants were asked to assume the role of manager. The participants then conducted mock job interviews with male and female applicants who had applied either a ‘male’ perfume, a ‘female’ perfume or no perfume at all. Applicants who had applied a typically masculine perfume were employed by the participants with a higher degree of success than those that had applied a typically feminine perfume. KR
Memory pill A drug developed to help patients with Alzheimer’s disease has been found to improve memory performance in healthy people [Yesavage, J.A. et al. (2002) Neurology 59, 123–125]. Jerome Yesavage and his fellow researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine in California recruited 18 airline pilots, aged between 30 and 70 years, to perform a 75 minute flight simulator task involving complex
1364-6613/02/$ – see front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences Vol.6 No.9 September 2002
369
Journal Club
Lateral bias in chimpanzee expressions of facial emotion In humans, the left hemiface is generally found to be more emotionally expressive than the right, a finding consistent with innervation by the right cerebral hemisphere, which is dominant for emotional behaviour. Similar asymmetries documented in nonhuman primates suggest evolutionary precursors to brain laterality in emotional expression. A recent study by FernandezCarriba et al. [1] examined facial expression of emotion in another highly social species with a rich repertoire of facial expressions, our closest relative, the chimpanzee. Facial asymmetry was examined in spontaneous facial expressions produced by a sample of 36 chimpanzees who were videotaped engaging in natural social
interactions. The collected images were categorized so that five common facial expressions were represented: panthooting, play face, silent pout, scream face, and bared-teeth display. The best images were then selected for each category so that, where possible, a clean, head-on stimulus was acquired. Objective measures involved quantifying the left and right hemimouth length and area for each facial expression. There was a significant leftward asymmetry for most facial expressions; that is, the length, area or both, deviated significantly to the left. This asymmetry was apparently not influenced by demographic variables such as the age, sex or handedness. As additional evidence,
human judgments of chimpanzee chimeric hemifaces also revealed a preference asymmetry: overall, subjects chose the left–left composites as the most emotionally intense. Both the objective and subjective measures indicated a greater involvement of the left hemiface in the production of facial expressions of emotion in chimpanzees, suggesting that chimpanzees, like humans, show a right hemisphere specialization for facial expression.
near the old airport showed improvements in memory and reading, but not speech perception. KR
Male applicants only!
1 Fernandez-Carriba, S. et al. (2002) Asymmetry in facial expression of emotions by chimpanzees. Neuropsychologia 40, 1523–1533
Fiona Lyddy [email protected]
In Brief
Airport noise affects cognitive development
Do you want the good news or the bad?
Noisy aeroplanes taking off and landing can be detrimental to your child’s performance at school. A recent study has shown that airport noise can impair long- and shortterm memory, reading and speech perception in schoolchildren [Hugge et al. Psychol. Sci. 13 (in press)]. The researchers took advantage of the change in airport locations occurring in Munich. They recruited children who lived near the old airport site and the new airport site as well as a control group who experienced no airport noise. Before and after the switch over of the airports the children carried out cognitive performance tests. After the switch had occurred, the children living near the new airport showed a marked decline in memory, reading and speech perception skills. By contrast, the children who lived http://tics.trends.com
It often seems that the newspapers are full of bad news. A recent study proves this to be true in the case of medical research. Christopher Bartlett and colleagues at the University of Bristol examined all original research articles published in the Lancet and the British Medical Journal in 1999 and 2000 [Bartlett, C. et al. (2002) BMJ 325, 81–84]. They recorded which articles were chosen by the journals for press release, and which articles were subsequently reported in The Times and The Sun newspapers. Although good and bad news were equally likely to be chosen for press release from specialist medical journals, the bad news was more likely to make it into the newspapers. Results from randomised controlled trials, which provide the strongest evidence, were also under-reported in the newspapers; instead, the newspapers tended to report results of observational studies that are more prone to bias. The first concern of newspaper editors is to sell papers; however, the authors of this study argue that they should also consider their duty to the public to communicate scientific research responsibly. HJB
Next time you have a job interview be careful about what kind of perfume you choose to wear. Apparently, you are more likely to be successful if you wear a ‘masculine’ fragrance [Sczesny and Stahlberg Eur. J. Social Psychol. (in press)]. Sczesny and Stalberg conducted an experiment where male and female participants were asked to assume the role of manager. The participants then conducted mock job interviews with male and female applicants who had applied either a ‘male’ perfume, a ‘female’ perfume or no perfume at all. Applicants who had applied a typically masculine perfume were employed by the participants with a higher degree of success than those that had applied a typically feminine perfume. KR
Memory pill A drug developed to help patients with Alzheimer’s disease has been found to improve memory performance in healthy people [Yesavage, J.A. et al. (2002) Neurology 59, 123–125]. Jerome Yesavage and his fellow researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine in California recruited 18 airline pilots, aged between 30 and 70 years, to perform a 75 minute flight simulator task involving complex
1364-6613/02/$ – see front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.