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Previous research has shown that perceived facial valence is biased toward background valence. Here, we examine whether background dominance also affects perceived facial dominance. In particular, we hypothesized that downward-pointing triangles, which are known to convey threat, would affect perceived facial dominance. Participants judged perceived facial dominance of neutral faces presented overlaid on downward- or upward-pointing background triangles. Our results show that neutral faces are indeed judged more dominant when seen with a downward-pointing triangle in the background. The fact that simple geometric background shapes can affect facial judgments may have important implications for the design and experience of our daily environment and multimedia content.

This study explores the effects of various spatiotemporal dynamic texture characteristics on human emotions. The emotional experience of auditory (eg, music) and haptic repetitive patterns has been studied extensively. In contrast, the emotional experience of visual dynamic textures is still largely unknown, despite their natural ubiquity and increasing use in digital media. Participants watched a set of dynamic textures, representing either water or various different media, and self-reported their emotional experience. Motion complexity was found to have mildly relaxing and nondominant effects. In contrast, motion change complexity was found to be arousing and dominant. The speed of dynamics had arousing, dominant, and unpleasant effects. The amplitude of dynamics was also regarded as unpleasant. The regularity of the dynamics over the textures' area was found to be uninteresting, nondominant, mildly relaxing, and mildly pleasant. The spatial scale of the dynamics had an unpleasant, arousing, and dominant effect, which was larger for textures with diverse content than for water textures. For water textures, the effects of spatial contrast were arousing, dominant, interesting, and mildly unpleasant. None of these effects were observed for textures of diverse content. The current findings are relevant for the design and synthesis of affective multimedia content and for affective scene indexing and retrieval.

This study investigates the influence of a first-person perspective (1PP) and a third-person perspective (3PP), respectively, on the affective appraisal and on the user engagement of a three-dimensional virtual environment in SECOND LIFE. Participants explored the environment while searching for five targets during a limited time span, using either a 1PP or a 3PP. No significant overall effect was found for viewing perspective on the appraisal of the three-dimensional virtual environment on the dimensions of arousal and valence. However, a 3PP yields more perceived control over the avatar and the events, which is a requirement for engagement. Analysis of the performance on the search task shows that participants using a 3PP find more objects but also need more time to find them. The present results suggest that a 3PP conveys a more distinct impression of the environment, thereby increasing engagement, and probably induces a different viewing strategy. Hence, a 3PP appears preferable for simulation and training applications in which the correct assessment of the affective properties of an environment is essential.

Restrictions of field-of-view are known to impair human performance for a range of different tasks. However, such effects on human locomotion through a complex environment are still not clear. Effects of both horizontal (30 degrees, 75 degrees, 112 degrees, 120 degrees, 140 degrees, 160 degrees, and 180 degrees) and vertical (18 degrees and 48 degrees) field-of-view restrictions on the walking speed and head movements of participants maneuvering through an obstacle course were investigated. All field-of-view restrictions tested significantly increased time to complete the entire course, compared to the unrestricted condition. The time to traverse the course was significantly longer for a vertical field-of-view of 18 degrees than for a vertical field-of-view of 48 degrees. For a fixed vertical field-of-view size, the traversal time was constant for horizontal field-of-view sizes ranging between 75 degrees and 180 degrees and increased significantly for the 30 degrees horizontal field-of-view condition. In the restricted viewing conditions, the angular velocity of head movements made while stepping over an obstacle increased significantly over that for the unrestricted field-of-view condition, but no difference was found between the different field-of-view sizes. Implications of the current findings for the development of devices with field-of-view restrictions are discussed.

Effects of field-of-view restrictions on the speed and accuracy of participants performing a real-world manoeuvring task through an obstacled environment were investigated. Although field-of-view restrictions are known to affect human behaviour and to degrade performance for a range of different tasks, the relationship between human manoeuvring performance and field-of-view size is not known. This knowledge is essential to evaluate a trade-off between human performance, cost, and ergonomic aspects of field-of-view limiting devises like head-mounted displays and night vision goggles which are frequently deployed for tasks involving human motion through environments with obstacles. In this study the speed and accuracy of movement were measured in 15 participants (8 men, 7 women, 22.9 ± 2.8 yr. of age) traversing a course formed by three wall segments for different field-of-view restrictions. Analysis showed speed decreased linearly with decreasing field-of-view extent, while accuracy was consistently reduced for all restricted field-of-view conditions. Present results may be used to evaluate cost and performance trade-offs for field-of-view restricting devices deployed to perform time-limited human-locomotion tasks in complex structured environments, such as night-vision goggles and head-mounted displays.

We tested the hypothesis that, either through training or selection, military personnel is more resilient to stress than civilians, as indicated by several subjective and physiological measures. In addition, we examined the effect of stress on the perceived trustworthiness of faces in these two groups. Stress was induced in 45 civilian participants and 45 army participants through the Sing-a-Song Stress Test (SSST). In this paradigm seven neutral sentences are presented, each followed by a 60-s interval. An eighth sentence asks participants to sing a song aloud after the next (eighth or stress) interval. Participants rated the trustworthiness of five neutral faces, both before and after the SSST. Pupil size, heart rate, and skin conductance were adopted as physiological stress correlates. Stress response was calculated as the difference between the mean values over the last neutral interval and the stress interval. Subjective stress ratings were obtained before and after the SSST. The baseline levels of all physiological and subjective measures were the same in the army and civilian groups, while all measures showed a significant increase following the stressor. However, compared with the civilian group, army participants reported significantly less stress and showed significantly attenuated heart rate and skin conductance responses to the SSST. These results indicate higher stress resilience in the army compared with the civilian group. In addition, we found that perceived facial trustworthiness decreased after presentation of the stressor, suggesting that the effect of a stressor can influence in principle unrelated social judgments based on facial information. © The Author(s) 2017.

How we perceive our environment affects the way we feel and behave. The impressions of our ambient environment are influenced by its entire spectrum of physical characteristics (e.g., luminosity, sound, scents, temperature) in a dynamic and interactive way. The ability to manipulate the sensory aspects of an environment such that people feel comfortable or exhibit a desired behavior is gaining interest and social relevance. Although much is known about the sensory effects of individual environmental characteristics, their combined effects are not a priori evident due to a wide range of non-linear interactions in the processing of sensory cues. As a result, it is currently not known how different environmental characteristics should be combined to effectively induce desired emotional and behavioral effects. To gain more insight into this matter, we performed a literature review on the emotional effects of multisensory stimulation. Although we found some interesting mechanisms, the outcome also reveals that empirical evidence is still scarce and haphazard. To stimulate further discussion and research, we propose a conceptual framework that describes how environmental interventions are likely to affect human emotional responses. This framework leads to some critical research questions that suggest opportunities for further investigation.