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Motivated by conflicting evidence in the literature, we re-assessed the role of facial feedback when detecting quantitative or qualitative changes in others’ emotional expressions. Fifty-three healthy adults observed self-paced morph sequences where the emotional facial expression either changed quantitatively (i.e., sad-to-neutral, neutral-to-sad, happy-to-neutral, neutral-to-happy) or qualitatively (i.e. from sad to happy, or from happy to sad). Observers held a pen in their own mouth to induce smiling or frowning during the detection task. When morph sequences started or ended with neutral expressions we replicated a congruency effect: Happiness was perceived longer and sooner while smiling; sadness was perceived longer and sooner while frowning. Interestingly, no such congruency effects occurred for transitions between emotional expressions. These results suggest that facial feedback is especially useful when evaluating the intensity of a facial expression, but less so when we have to recognize which emotion our counterpart is expressing.
It has been debated whether negative number concepts are cognitively represented on the same mental number line as positive number concepts. The present study reviews this debate and identifies limitations of previous studies. A method with nonspatial stimuli and responses is applied to overcome these limitations and to document a systematic implicit association of negative numbers with left space, thus indicating a leftward extension of the mental number line. Importantly, this result only held for left-to-right counting adults. Implications for the experiential basis of abstract conceptual knowledge are discussed.