alldata.xls

<b>Aim of Experiment:</b><b>The purpose of the current experiment was to test whether irrelevant gender-based features influence action planning in response to emotions. In this study, two faces were shown at a Stimulus Onset Asynchrony (SOA) varying between 200 to 300 ms. The participants were instructed to respond to the emotion of the first face (Response cue) only on presentation of the second face (Go-signal). Both the faces could be similar for emotion, gender, both or neither. The study aimed at testing if gender compatibility or lack of it influences emotion-based responses.</b><b>Method and Design:</b><b>Forty-nine undergraduate students (age group: 17 to 29 years, 4 females, 45 males) participated in this study. Informed consent was obtained from all participants for participation. Thirty-eight female Caucasian Radbound faces (19 happy, 19 fear), as well as 40 male Caucasian Radbound faces (20 happy, 20 fear), were used as stimuli. Participants did 832 trials divided into two blocks of 416 trials each. In one block of trials, participants were instructed to respond to the emotion of the first face only if the second face was happy. In another block, participants were instructed to respond only if the second face expressed fear. There were four kinds of response cues: Male happy, Male Fear, Female Happy and Female Fear faces. Both the faces in each trial could be compatible or not with respect to emotion. They could be compatible or not with respect to Gender. Thus, there were sixteen conditions in this experiment. There were 52 trials in each condition. </b><b>Data Analysis:</b><b>Data pertaining to No-go trials were removed from all analyses (see sheet ‘gotrials’). For all analyses, if a response was given during the time interval before the presentation of the Go-signal, it was considered an anticipatory response. If the response was given a second after the presentation of the Go-signal, it was considered a slow response. If the participant made incorrect key-press to indicate emotion judgment, it was considered an inaccurate response. One participant was removed as the percentage of inaccurate responses given by him was above 2.5SD above-average percentages across all participants. Two participants were removed as the percentages of slow responses given by them were above 2.5SD above-average percentages across all participants. Three participants were removed as their percentages of anticipatory responses were above 2.5SD above average across participants (see ‘parwiseerror’ for details about how this was done. Percentages of different types of error were calculated from ‘errorpivot’). For Reaction time analysis, anticipatory (0.2% of remaining trials) responses, slow responses (4.5% of remaining trials), and inaccurate responses (4.5% of remaining responses) were removed (see ‘percerror’ from dataset created at ‘afterremovalerrorpar’) . </b><b>Three-way repeated measures factorial ANOVA was conducted for Reaction times and percentage of inaccuracy for three factors: two levels of emotion compatibility and two levels of gender compatibility between response cue and Go-signal The nature of the response cue had four levels: Male-Happy, Male-Fear, Female-Happy, and Female-Fear. Data was parsed into sixteen groups by combining two levels of emotion compatibility, two levels of gender compatibility and four types of response cue. Outliers were defined as datapoints lying 2.5SD above and below the means for each of these groups. Accordingly, 1.5% of trials were removed. The remaining data (see ‘afterremovaloutliers’ for data after outlier removal) was put through a 4(response cue) *2(Emotion compatibility) *2(Gender compatibility) repeated measures ANOVA. For RT analysis, RT data for each participant across all trials of each of the 16 conditions was averaged (see ‘genemocongRTchart’). This sheet also provides four charts indicating RT scores for conditions of Gender and Emotion compatibility (and lack of it) for each of the four types of response cue. Similarly, for inaccuracy analysis, a similar repeated measures ANOVA was conducted. Percentage of inaccuracy was calculated for each of the 16 conditions for each participant. Sheet ‘genemoconginaccchart’) provides this dataset. This sheet also provides four charts indicating percentage inaccuracy scores for conditions of Gender and Emotion compatibility (and lack of it) for each of the four types of response cue.</b><b>Major Findings:</b><b>• For Male Happy faces, even though participants were faster for emotion compatible trials compared to incompatible ones, this effect was more prominent for trials that were incompatible for Gender. Thus, participants were relatively faster to respond to happy emotion on male faces when the Go-signal was a happy female face compared to when it was a female fear face.</b><b>• While responding to a Female Happy face, participants were faster for emotion compatible trials compared to incompatible ones irrespective of the gender of the second face. Also, they were faster for gender compatible compared to incompatible trials irrespective of the emotion of the second face.</b><b>• While responding to a Male Fear face, participants were faster for emotion compatible trials compared to incompatible ones irrespective of the gender of the second face.</b><b>• While responding to a Female Fear face, participants were faster for emotion compatible compared to incompatible trials.</b><b>Conclusions:</b><b>Task irrelevant gender based sensory features influenced action planning in face of emotion of happiness but not fear. Thus, task-irrelevant sensory features influence action planning in response to emotions in a context sensitive manner. </b><br>