Different stereotypical facial expressions convey unique signals of muscular activity in distinct face regions. For example, the recognition of anger relies on decoding the downward drawing of the brows, while disgust recognition relies on decoding nose wrinkling and upper lip raising. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that one’s ability to identify a facial expression is strongly influenced by the facial features that gaze was fixated upon. Indeed, a large body of research supports the claim that facial fixation distributions and emotion recognition are strongly associated: fixating information-rich regions enhances emotion recognition, while suboptimal face-scanning impedes it. Here, we offer a critical assessment of whether the data support this link. We critically review several bodies of research, examining the relationship between gaze exploration of facial expressions and emotion recognition, across different cultures, neuropsychological conditions, age, gender, as well as personal tendencies of facial visual exploration and different experimental conditions. Integrating results from these diverse fields suggests that compelling evidence regarding the manner that emotion recognition relies on visual scanning patterns has yet to emerge. While it is clear that certain facial features are differentially diagnostic for stereotypical emotion recognition, how that information is sampled and extracted remains elusive. We suggest that the dominant approach of examining the distribution of fixation locations may not be sufficient for solving this puzzle. Rather, using more complex eye-tracking analyses and taking into account the extrafoveal processing are crucial for revealing the contribution of visual scanning to emotion recognition.

中文翻译：

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眼动模式与面部表情识别之间难以捉摸的联系

不同的刻板面部表情传达了不同面部区域肌肉活动的独特信号。例如，愤怒的识别依赖于对眉毛向下的解码，而厌恶识别则依赖于对皱鼻子和上唇的解码。因此，可以合理地假设一个人识别面部表情的能力受到凝视所注视的面部特征的强烈影响。事实上，大量研究支持面部注视分布和情绪识别密切相关的说法：注视信息丰富的区域可以增强情绪识别，而次优的面部扫描会阻碍它。在这里，我们对数据是否支持此链接进行了批判性评估。我们批判性地审查了几个研究机构，检查面部表情的凝视探索与情绪识别之间的关系，跨越不同的文化、神经心理条件、年龄、性别，以及面部视觉探索的个人倾向和不同的实验条件。整合这些不同领域的结果表明，关于情绪识别依赖于视觉扫描模式的方式的令人信服的证据尚未出现。虽然很明显某些面部特征对于刻板的情绪识别具有不同的诊断意义，但如何对这些信息进行采样和提取仍然难以捉摸。我们建议检查注视位置分布的主要方法可能不足以解决这个难题。相当，