USE OF SIGN LANGUAGE DOES NOT FAVOR RECOGNITION OF STATIC AND DYNAMIC EMOTIONAL FACES IN DEAF

Facial expressions are especially relevant for deaf people because, in addition to the emotional content, they assume linguistic functions exclusive to sign languages. In the present study, we investigated the recognition of static (photographs) and dynamic (videos) facial expressions in: 1) deaf signers with profound congenital or early-acquired deafness (up to 2 years of age); 2) hearing individuals who knew sign language; and 3) hearing individuals who did not know sign language. Facial expressions of joy, sadness, fear, and anger in static and dynamic conditions were presented at 4 intensities (25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%). In the dynamic condition, we found that deaf individuals had lower recognition scores compared to the other two groups of hearing individuals (p < .05). However, in the static condition, no differences between groups were found (p > .05). Those results indicate that the use of facial expressions in sign language does not necessarily favor emotion recognition, probably because facial expressions have linguistic properties not related to emotional content.

面部表情对于听障人群而言尤为关键，因为除了承载情绪内涵之外，它们还承担了手语（Sign Language）专属的语言学功能。本研究针对静态（照片）与动态（视频）两种模态下的面部表情识别展开了探究，受试对象分为三组：1）先天或2岁前早年罹患重度耳聋的聋人手语使用者；2）掌握手语的健听人群；3）未掌握手语的健听人群。实验涵盖喜悦、悲伤、恐惧、愤怒四种面部表情，且每种表情均以25%、50%、75%、100%四种强度呈现。动态模态实验结果显示，听障受试者的识别得分显著低于另外两组健听受试者（p < .05）；而静态模态实验中未观察到组间存在显著统计学差异（p > .05）。上述结果表明，手语中对面部表情的运用未必会促进情绪识别，这或许是因为面部表情在手语中兼具与情绪内涵无关的语言学属性。