Ensemble Perception of Dynamic Emotional Groups.
Crowds of emotional faces are ubiquitous, so much so that the visual system utilizes a specialized mechanism known as ensemble coding to see them. In addition to being proximally close, members of emotional crowds, such as a laughing audience or an angry mob, often behave together. The manner in which crowd members behave-in sync or out of sync-may be critical for understanding their collective affect. Are ensemble mechanisms sensitive to these dynamic properties of groups? Here, observers estimated the average emotion of a crowd of dynamic faces. The members of some crowds changed their expressions synchronously, whereas individuals in other crowds acted asynchronously. Observers perceived the emotion of a synchronous group more precisely than the emotion of an asynchronous crowd or even a single dynamic face. These results demonstrate that ensemble representation is particularly sensitive to coordinated behavior, and they suggest that shared behavior is critical for understanding emotion in groups.
['Elias|Elric|E|', 'Dyer|Michael|M|', 'Sweeny|Timothy D|TD|']
D000328:Adult D004644:Emotions D005149:Facial Expression D000066499:Facial Recognition D006126:Group Processes D006801:Humans D012938:Social Perception
emotion ensemble coding open data social perception summary perception visual perception