The color of the face changes depending on the emotion at the time, and there is a close relationship between the color and facial expressions (emotions).However, previous research has focused on faces with clearly recognizable facial expressions, that is, conscious recognition of facial expressions, and has focused on how facial color affects facial expression recognition that is not clearly conscious. It was unclear whether

　Therefore, this research team conducted psychophysical experiments using special facial expression images called "hybrid facial expressions."Hybrid facial expressions are expressions that mix happy and neutral expressions, or angry and neutral facial expressions at different spatial frequencies (in order, hybrid happy facial expressions and hybrid angry facial expressions), and are one of the experimental stimuli often used in emotion research. is.

　As a result of the experiment, it was confirmed that the hybrid facial expressions appeared expressionless to the observers, that is, they were not aware that there was any emotion in the faces.However, it was found that when the face of the hybrid happy expression was colored red, the happy expression appeared more friendly.However, we confirmed that even if the face was reddish, the emotion of these hybrid facial expressions was not perceived (the face appeared expressionless).This suggests that even if observers are aware that a reddish face is expressionless, facial redness increases the friendliness rating (friendliness) of that face.

　The research group's future goal is to verify whether this phenomenon develops among participants from various backgrounds (race, age, etc.).In the future, it is expected that this technology will be able to be applied to a variety of activities in daily life to read emotions from faces.

Paper information:【Cognition and Emotion】The effect of facial color on implicit facial expressions