engleski

Comparison of Emotion Recognition in Facial Expression and Music

Recognition of basic emotions in everyday communication involves interpretation of different visual and auditory clues. It is not clearly determined how precise is the ability to recognize emotions because their presentation is usually very short (micro expressions) and the recognition itself does not have to be a conscious process. We assumed that the recognition from facial expressions is selected over the recognition of emotions presented as music. In order to compare success in recognizing emotions presented as facial expressions or in classical music works we conducted a survey which included 90 elementary school and 87 high school students from Osijek (Croatia). Participants had to link 8 photographs of different emotions expressed on face and 8 pieces of classical music work with 8 offered emotions. Emotion recognition presented as classical music pieces was significantly less successful than the recognition of emotional facial expressions. High school students did significantly better in recognizing emotions on faces than elementary school students and girls were better than boys. Success in recognizing emotions in musical pieces was associated with higher grades in mathematics. Basic emotions are far better recognized if presented on human faces than in music, possibly because the recognition of face is one of the oldest communication skills in human society. Female advantage in emotion recognition could be adaptation selected because of necessity to communicate with the newborns during early development. Proficiency in recognizing emotional content of music and mathematical skills probably share some general cognitive skills like attention, memory and motivation. Musical pieces were differently processed in the brain and probably because of that differently valuated as relevant emotional clues.

emotions ; facial expression recognition ; gender specific ; music

nije evidentirano