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. 2022 Jul 15;17(7):e0271047.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0271047. eCollection 2022.

The spatio-temporal features of perceived-as-genuine and deliberate expressions

Shushi Namba  1 , Koyo Nakamura  2   3   4 , Katsumi Watanabe  4
Affiliations

The spatio-temporal features of perceived-as-genuine and deliberate expressions

Shushi Namba et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Reading the genuineness of facial expressions is important for increasing the credibility of information conveyed by faces. However, it remains unclear which spatio-temporal characteristics of facial movements serve as critical cues to the perceived genuineness of facial expressions. This study focused on observable spatio-temporal differences between perceived-as-genuine and deliberate expressions of happiness and anger expressions. In this experiment, 89 Japanese participants were asked to judge the perceived genuineness of faces in videos showing happiness or anger expressions. To identify diagnostic facial cues to the perceived genuineness of the facial expressions, we analyzed a total of 128 face videos using an automated facial action detection system; thereby, moment-to-moment activations in facial action units were annotated, and nonnegative matrix factorization extracted sparse and meaningful components from all action units data. The results showed that genuineness judgments reduced when more spatial patterns were observed in facial expressions. As for the temporal features, the perceived-as-deliberate expressions of happiness generally had faster onsets to the peak than the perceived-as-genuine expressions of happiness. Moreover, opening the mouth negatively contributed to the perceived-as-genuine expressions, irrespective of the type of facial expressions. These findings provide the first evidence for dynamic facial cues to the perceived genuineness of happiness and anger expressions.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. The histogram of Yes responses for the genuineness judgment of happiness (upper part) and anger (lower part).
Fig 2
Fig 2. Heatmap of each component’s loadings for facial expressions of happiness (upper part) and visual representations (lower part). Value colors represent each facial movement’s contribution to component scores.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Time-series patterns for the magnitude of difference between the perceived-as-genuine and perceived-as-deliberate expressions of happiness.
The y-axis represents the extent of the “δ” parameters for each component. Solid lines indicate the expected a posteriori. Positive values refer to a relatively large spatial component of (left: perceived-as-genuine, center: deliberate, right: genuine), while negative values indicate a relatively large spatial component of (left and center: perceived-as-ambiguous, right: deliberate). The ribbons represent 99% credible intervals.
Fig 4
Fig 4. Heatmap of each component’s loadings for facial expressions of anger (upper part) and visual representations (lower part). Value colors represent each facial movement’s contribution to component scores.
Fig 5
Fig 5. Time-series patterns for the magnitude of difference between the perceived-as-genuine and perceived-as-deliberate expressions of anger.
The y-axis represents the extent of the “δ” parameter for each component. The solid lines indicate the expected a posteriori. Positive values refer to a relatively large spatial component of (left: perceived-as-genuine, center: deliberate, right: genuine), while negative values indicate a relatively large spatial component of (left and center: perceived-as-ambiguous, right: deliberate). The ribbons represent 99% credible intervals.
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Publication types

Grants and funding

This research was supported by Early-Career Scientists (20K14256) from JSPS to S. N., Early-Career Scientists (19K20387) from JSPS to K.N., Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Area (17H06344) from JSPS, and by Moonshot R&D (JPMJMS2012) from JST to K.W. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.