Images with an ambiguous valence (e.g., surprised facial expressions) are interpreted by some people as having a negative valence, and by others, as having a more positive valence. Despite these individual differences in valence bias, the more automatic interpretation is negative, and positivity appears to require regulation. Interestingly, extant research has shown that there is an age-related positivity effect such that relative to young adults, older adults attend to and remember positive more than negative information. In this report, the authors show that this positivity effect extends to emotional ambiguity (Experiment 1). Eighty participants (aged 19-71, 42 females) rated the valence of images with a clear or ambiguous valence. They found that age correlated with valence bias, such that older adults showed a more positive bias, and they took longer to rate images, than younger adults. They also found that this increase in reaction times was sufficient to bias positivity (Experiment 2). Thirty-four participants (aged 18-28, 24 females) rated ambiguous and clear images, before and after an instruction to delay their RTs. They also found that although ratings among individuals with a positive bias did not change, those with a negative bias became more positive when encouraged to delay. Indeed, participants with the strongest negativity bias showed the greatest increase in RTs. Taken together, this work demonstrates that the valence bias, which represents a stable, trait-like difference across people, can be moved in the positive direction, at least temporarily, when participants are encouraged to take their time and consider alternatives. (PsycINFO Database Record

Facial expressions offer an ecologically valid model for examining individual differences in affective decision-making. They convey an emotional signal from a social agent and provide important predictive information about one’s environment (presence of potential rewards or threats). Although some expressions provide clear predictive information (angry, happy), others (surprised) are ambiguous in that they predict both positive and negative outcomes. Thus, surprised faces can delineate an individual’s valence bias, or the tendency to interpret ambiguity as positive or negative. Our initial negativity hypothesis suggests that the initial response to ambiguity is negative, and that positivity relies on emotion regulation. We tested this hypothesis by comparing brain activity during explicit emotion regulation (reappraisal) and while freely viewing facial expressions, and measuring the relationship between brain activity and valence bias. Brain regions recruited during reappraisal showed greater activity for surprise in individuals with an increasingly positive valence bias. Additionally, we linked amygdala activity with an initial negativity, revealing a pattern similarity in individuals with negative bias between viewing surprised faces and maintaining negativity. Finally, these individuals failed to show normal habituation to clear negativity. These results support the initial negativity hypothesis, and are consistent with emotion research in both children and adult populations.

Surprised expressions are interpreted as negative by some people, and as positive by others. When compared to fearful expressions, which are consistently rated as negative, surprise and fear share similar morphological structure (e.g., widened eyes), but these similarities are primarily in the upper part of the face (eyes). We hypothesized, then, that individuals would be more likely to interpret surprise positively when fixating faster to the lower part of the face (mouth). Participants rated surprised and fearful faces as either positive or negative while eye movements were recorded. Positive ratings of surprise were associated with longer fixation on the mouth than negative ratings. There were also individual differences in fixation patterns, with individuals who fixated the mouth earlier exhibiting increased positive ratings. These findings suggest that there are meaningful individual differences in how people process faces.

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