Emotional anticipation for dynamic emotional faces is not modulated by schizotypal traits: A Representational Momentum study

Abstract

Schizotypy is a personality structure that resembles positive, negative, and disorganized symptoms of schizophrenia, often associated with abnormal emotional face perception. Moreover, due to the predominant sense characterizing psychotic experiences, people with high schizotypal traits might be more prone to anticipate a potential threat based on the immediate perceptual history of others’ facial expressions. To test this hypothesis, angry-to-ambiguous and happy-to-ambiguous dynamic avatar faces were presented, each followed by a probe depicting the same expression as the final frame of the dynamic face (ambiguous) or one slightly changed to greater happiness/anger. Participants were asked to judge if the probe was equal to the final frame and to rate how confident they were. The direction of bias was calculated, with positive values indicating a Representational Momentum (RM) effect, a perceptual phenomenon in which the offset of a dynamic event is systematically displaced forward, into the immediate future. Firstly, happy-to-ambiguous faces significantly induced RM, suggesting an emotional anticipation for dynamic faces changing towards a potential threat. Secondly, this effect was higher for male than female faces, consistent with a maleness-anger association. Thirdly, and more importantly, our hypothesis of higher RM for happy-to-ambiguous faces in people with high (compared to low) schizotypal traits was not confirmed, as no effect of schizotypal traits was observed. This suggests a typical pattern of emotional anticipation for dynamic emotional faces in subclinical schizotypy. Future studies should investigate if the same holds for clinical manifestations of schizophrenia.