FACSGen: A Tool to Synthesize Emotional Facial Expressions Through Systematic Manipulation of Facial Action Units

To investigate the perception of emotional facial expressions, researchers rely on shared sets of photos or videos, most often generated by actor portrayals. The drawback of such standardized material is a lack of flexibility and controllability, as it does not allow the systematic parametric manipulation of specific features of facial expressions on the one hand, and of more general properties of the facial identity (age, ethnicity, gender) on the other. To remedy this problem, we developed FACSGen: a novel tool that allows the creation of realistic synthetic 3D facial stimuli, both static and dynamic, based on the Facial Action Coding System. FACSGen provides researchers with total control over facial action units, and corresponding informational cues in 3D synthetic faces. We present four studies validating both the software and the general methodology of systematically generating controlled facial expression patterns for stimulus presentation.     

Societal Risk Perception and Media Coverage

The study compares societal risk ratings by inhabitants of two countries which differ markedly in terms of geography, economics, politics, and ethnic background, but which are similar as regards media coverage. The two populations were represented by a sample of French students and a sample of Burkina Faso intellectuals. The overall Burkinabè mean ratings appeared much closer to the mean observed in France (and in the United States–roughly 40 out of 100) than the means reported for other countries like Norway or Hungary. The correlation between Burkinabè and French ratings was very high:.852. The findings argue in favor of a practically totally determinant effect of the media in risk perception.     

Societal Risk Perception Among African Villagers Without Access to the Media

The impact of the media on people's risk perception was assessed by comparing risk ratings obtained from African villagers without access to the media with risk ratings obtained from African city-dwellers with access to the media and risk ratings obtained from French participants. The overall mean risk judgment observed among the Togolese villagers was lower than the mean rating observed among the Togolese city-dwellers, and lower than the mean rating observed among the French. The linear association observed between the Togolese villagers' ratings and the Togolese city-dweller ratings and the French ratings was moderate. The impact of the media on risk perception was estimated to be an increase of about 15% of the overall mean ratings, and to about 31% of the variance of the mean ratings. This impact was independent of educational level.     

The Instruction set of Questionnaires can Affect the Structure of the Data: Application to Self-Rated State Anxiety

The present study tested the assumption that self-ratings, such as those used for measuring state anxiety, do not measure a one-dimensional transcendent entity but involve decisions based on a multi-dimensional judgment. Two groups of subjects were presented with a balanced nine-item state anxiety questionnaire. Each group received a different set of instructions (a standard set and an altered instruction set suggesting unidimensionality of the questions in the questionnaire). It was hypothesized that this change in instructions would impact the structure of the data. The impact of the instructions was detectable at the level of the observed correlation between the negative and positive composites, Cohen's (1988) q=–0.27$. A multigroup confirmatory factor analysis showed that positive and negative wording factors correlated more strongly when unidimensionality was suggested than when standard instructions were used, q=–0.54. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Reconciliation Sentiment Among Victims of Genocide in Rwanda: Conceptualizations,and Relationships with Mental Health

In two studies that were conducted in Rwanda, we have examined the conceptualizations held by people who have experienced genocide with regard to reconciliation sentiment and quantitatively assessed the relationship between reconciliation sentiment and mental health. It was found that the participants have articulated conceptualizations regarding the nature of reconciliation sentiment. These conceptualizations are consistent with the way the genocide victims personally experienced reconciliation. More importantly, one type of reconciliation sentiment (the one corresponding to a renewed capacity to live together, hear each other, work together, and to forge compromises on a daily basis) was associated with mental health.     

Age,religious beliefs,and sexual attitudes

Age effects on sexual attitudes were examined using the Hendrick and Hendrick (1987a) Sexual Attitude Scale. The study was cross‐sectional, including people from various age groups, from young adults to older adults. The religious beliefs variable, which covaries substantially both with age and sexual attitudes, was controlled. Three main questions guided the study: (a) Is the four‐factor structure (Permissiveness, Instrumentality, Communion, and Sexual Practices) previously identified in a sample of young students able to accurately account for data gathered over a full range of adult ages, (b) are older adults much less permissive and less instrumentalist than young people, and (c) to what extent are believers less permissive and instrumentalist than young people when age is taken into account? Factor analyses showed that at least five correlated factors were needed to account for the data; the fourth factor, Sexual Practices, divided itself into two distinct factors: Pleasure and Responsibility. Older adults and believers were shown to be less permissive than young people and nonbelievers, and this result held regardless of the participants’ educational level. As regards to instrumentality, however, the pattern of differences was extremely complex.     

Breast feeding,fertility and infant mortality: An analysis of some early German data

Concern about high infant mortality and its suspected connection with the lack of breast-feeding stimulated the collection of statistics about the frequency of breast-feeding in several German states during the late roth and early 20th centuries. Contrary to the assumption that universal and extended breast-feeding is customary among rural agricultural populations, large regional variations existed both in the proportion of children who were breast-fed and in the average duration of the period for which they were breast-fed. An analysis of these data in connection with statistics of infant mortality and marital fertility confirms the association between high infant mortality and the absence of breast-feeding. An hypothesis linking breast-feeding and fertility, however, is not confirmed. Marital fertility appears to be much more closely associated with infant mortality than with breast-feeding.     

Estimating the 'appropriate' age for retirement as a function of perceived occupational characteristics

The 'appropriate' age for retirement as perceived by 120 young, 120 middle-aged, and 120 elderly adults was investigated. No participants displayed any difficulties in expressing an opinion about the minimum and maximum 'appropriate' ages for retirement for various different occupations. Participants' representations of the 'appropriate' retirement age varied primarily as a function of the perceived physical constraints involved in the occupation but also depended on their age (the younger the respondent, the lower the perceived 'appropriate' minimum retirement age). There was no tendency among the young adults to wish to prolong the work life of older individuals. There was no tendency in any of the three age groups to associate age of retirement with perceived cognitive or social and organizational characteristics of work: only the perceived physical demands of work predicted age at retirement.