Face to Face

Face to Face is designed to exercise the social cognition network in the brain by requiring correct interpretation of facial expressions.

In Face to Face, a face shows briefly on screen. Then a new set of faces will display. Select the one showing the same expression as the first face shown.

How were the photos selected for this exercise?

First, each of the participants were asked to pose for a number of different photos, each conveying different emotions.  The emotions that the participants were asked to portray were afraid, angry, contemptuous, disgusted, embarrassed, happy, neutral, proud, surprised, puzzled, and sad.  Once all the photos had been taken, then the photo selection process began. 

Next, five experienced research staff members went over the images and rated the emotions presented in them. Only the images that were unanimously selected by all staff members were further tested. Then, we had between 20-50 outside raters indicate the emotion of every image. Only the expressions that had 80% agreement between raters were used. Then, a FACS expert person went over the images and further discarded the most ambiguous ones. The raters were also asked to rate the intensity of the emotion in the image, and so in the course of training, we organized the images so that we add more and more images with subtle expressions as the user progresses with training. By the end of this process we ended up with images for which most people agree that show a certain expression, and that are organized to some level by intensity of emotion.

For more on this exercise click here.