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International audience; This study aims at examining the precise temporal dynamics of the emotional facial decoding as it unfolds in the brain, according to the emotions displayed. To characterize this processing as it occurs in ecological settings, we focused on unconstrained visual explorations of natural emotional faces (i.e., free eye movements). The General Linear Model (GLM; Smith and Kutas, 2015a,b; Kristensen et al., 2017a) enables such a depiction. It allows deconvolving adjacent overlapping responses of the eye fixation-related potentials (EFRPs) elicited by the subsequent fixations and the event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited at the stimuli onset. Nineteen participants were displayed with spontaneous static facial expressions of emotions (Neutral, Disgust, Surprise, and Happiness) from the DynEmo database (Tcherkassof et al., 2013). Behavioral results on participants’ eye movements show that the usual diagnostic features in emotional decoding (eyes for negative facial displays and mouth for positive ones) are consistent with the literature. The impact of emotional category on both the ERPs and the EFRPs elicited by the free exploration of the emotional faces is observed upon the temporal dynamics of the emotional facial expression processing. Regarding the ERP at stimulus onset, there is a significant emotion-dependent modulation of the P2–P3 complex and LPP components’ amplitude at the left frontal site for the ERPs computed by averaging. Yet, the GLM reveals the impact of subsequent fixations on the ERPs time-locked on stimulus onset. Results are also in line with the valence hypothesis. The observed differences between the two estimation methods (Average vs. GLM) suggest the predominance of the right hemisphere at the stimulus onset and the implication of the left hemisphere in the processing of the information encoded by subsequent fixations. Concerning the first EFRP, the Lambda response and the P2 component are modulated by the emotion of surprise compared to the neutral emotion, suggesting an impact of high-level factors, in parieto-occipital sites. Moreover, no difference is observed on the second and subsequent EFRP. Taken together, the results stress the significant gain obtained in analyzing the EFRPs using the GLM method and pave the way toward efficient ecological emotional dynamic stimuli analyses.

La psychologie oscille depuis toujours entre une approche physiologique de l’émotion et une approche intellectualiste, négligeant ainsi, dans la vie affective, ce qui est authentiquement affectif. Dans la vie courante, le terme émotion qualifie en premier lieu des phénomènes expérientiels qui sortent de l’ordinaire. En raison des mouvements de l’âme qui les caractérisent, les philosophes ont désigné ces phénomènes par des termes qui en soulignent la dimension cinétique : kinèsis pour Aristote et, plus tard, émotion pour Descartes, un mot qui à son époque signifiait émeute ou agitation. En effet, les ressentis émotionnels sont des perceptions de l’engagement dynamique du corps dans l’interaction. Pourtant, la qualité cinesthésique des émotions a toujours été délaissée par la plupart des théories psychologiques récentes qui ont privilégié le jugement axiologique tout aussi central dans les émotions.Cet exposé présente les arguments plaidant en faveur du renouveau d’un modèle perceptif de l’émotion permettant d’expliciter le lien entre intentionnalité et phénoménologie. Ce modèle propose de reconsidérer le processus de perception en se fondant sur la théorie écologique de Gibson (1979). Selon celle-ci, la perception est une extraction par l’action et l’affordance la possibilité d’action offerte à l’organisme par son environnement. Dans cette perspective, le modèle perceptif présenté ici conçoit les émotions comme livrant au sujet un monde chargé de valeurs, sous la forme d’objets invitant à l’action. En d’autres termes, la perception est énactive. La signification de l’objet ou de l’événement n’est pas une évaluation cognitive entendue comme un processus d’appréciation intellectuelle mais une forme de compréhension médiée par la propre mobilisation corporelle du sujet. Cette approche basée sur l’action relationnelle pourrait ainsi réconcilier l’approche physiologique et l’approche intellectualiste des émotions. Elle nécessite pour cela de s’engager dans un véritable tournant paradigmatique. From the very beginning, psychology has always oscillated between a physiological approach of emotion and an intellectualist one, neglecting therefore in the affective life what is really authentically affective. In daily life, the word emotion in the first place typifies experiential phenomena which are beyond ordinary ones. Because of the movements of the soul which characterize them, the philosophers have designated these phenomena by words underlining their kinetic dimension. Aristotle used the word kinesis. Latter, Descartes used emotion, which in his time meant riot or agitation. As a matter of fact, the emotional feelings are perceptions of the dynamic commitment of the body in the interaction process. However, the kinesthetic value of emotions has practically been left aside in most of the recent psychological theories which have privileged the axiological judgment which is as central in emotions.This paper presents arguments which speak in favor of the renewal of a perceptual model of emotion which allows better explaining the link between intentionality and phenomenology. This model suggests reconsidering the perception process by calling upon Gibson’s (1979) ecological theory. According to the latter, perception is an extraction by action and the affordance is the action possibility given by the environment to the living organism. In this perspective, the perceptual model which is described here conceives emotions as giving to the subject a value laden world in the form of objects calling for action. In other terms, perception is enactive. The signification of the object or of the event is not a cognitive appraisal considered as a process of intellectual evaluation, but rather a form of comprehension mediated by the own subject’s corporal mobilization. The latter approach based on relational action thus could reconcile the naturalistic and the intellectualist approaches of emotions. However, this approach calls for a real paradigmatic turning point.

International audience; DynEmo is a database available to the scientific community (https://DynEmo.liglab.fr/). It contains dynamic and natural emotional facial expressions (EFEs) displaying subjective affective states rated by both the expresser and observers. Methodological and contextual information is provided for each expression. This multimodal corpus meets psychological, ethical, and technical criteria. It is quite large, containing two sets of 233 and 125 recordings of EFE of ordinary Caucasian people (ages 25 to 65, 182 females and 176 males) filmed in natural but standardized conditions. In the Set 1, EFE recordings are associated with the affective state of the expresser (self-reported after the emotion inducing task, using dimensional, action readiness, and emotional labels items). In the Set 2, EFE recordings are both associated with the affective state of the expresser and with the time line (continuous annotations) of observers' ratings of the emotions displayed throughout the recording. The time line allows any researcher interested in analysing non-verbal human behavior to segment the expressions into emotions.

International audience; The use of facial interfaces in distant communications highlights the relevance of emotional recognition. However researches on emotional facial expression (EFE) recognition are mainly based on static and posed stimuli and their results are not much transferable to daily interactions. The purpose of the present study is to compare emotional recognition of authentic EFEs with 11 different interface designs. A widget allowing participants both to recognize an emotion and to assess it on-line was used. Divided-face and compound-face interfaces are compared with a common full frontal interface. Analytic and descriptive on-line results reveal that some interfaces facilitate emotional recognition whereas others would decrease it. This study suggests that relevant interfaces could improve emotional recognition and thus facilitate distant communications.

This paper addresses methodological considerations relevant to nonverbal communication of emotion research. In order to gather more information about the interpretations given to spontaneous and dynamic facial expressions, two main objectives guide the present exploratory research. The first one is to obtain naturalistic recordings of emotional expressions in realistic settings that are ‘emotional enough’. The second one is to address the issue of dynamic judgments of facial expressions of emotion, that is real-time emotional recognition. An innovative device has been created for this specific purpose. Results show that, although the social nature of the eliciting situation is minimal, the experience of some emotions is reflected on the encoders' faces while being covertly videotaped in natural conditions. Moreover, results show the utility to investigate dynamic emotional judgments of spontaneous and dynamic expressions since observers seem to be sensitive to the slightest facial expression change in making their emotional judgments. A promising paradigm is thus proposed for the study of the dynamics of real-time nonverbal emotional interaction. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.