Chimeric Face Task

Technical Manual

Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Created: January 06, 2021

Last Modified: January 19, 2025 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC

Background

This script implements a Chimeric Faces Procedure similar to the one used by the Behavioural Laterality Battery (Parker et al, 2020). The Chimeric Face Task assesses the lateralisation of emotion processing in faces.

References

Behavioural Laterality Battery:
Adam J. Parker , Zoe V. J. Woodhead , Paul A. Thompson & Dorothy V. M. Bishop (2020): Assessing the reliability of an online behavioural laterality battery: A pre-registered study, Laterality, DOI: 10.1080/1357650X.2020.1859526 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1357650X.2020.1859526

https://gorilla.sc/openmaterials/104636

Chimeric Faces:
Burt, D. M. & Perrett, D. I. (1997). Perceptual asymmetries in judgements of facial attractiveness, age, gender, speech and expression. Neuropsychologia, 35, 685-693. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0028-3932(96)00111-X

Innes, R. B., Burt, D. M., Birch, Y. K. & Hausmann, M. (2016). A leftward bias however you look at it: Revisiting the emotional chimeric face task as a tool for measuring emotion lateralization. Laterality, 21, 643-661. https://doi.org/10.1080/1357650X.2015.1117095

Duration

10 minutes

Description

Participants view chimeric faces (different emotion on left and right side of face) for a short duration and have to select from 4 possible emotions (anger, disgust, happiness, sadness) which emotion was the strongest emotion displayed.

Procedure

(1) Intro*

(2) Practice: 8 trials
- 8 different images using 'surprise' and 'fear' as the emotions
- order of images randomly determined

(3) Test: 4 test blocks (see Editable Parameters)
- 16 images (4 per emotion: angerleft, disgustleft, happyleft, sadleft) are run twice per block = 32 trials
- order of images randomly determined ( the same image can be run consecutively)

Trial Sequence:
-Fixation Cross for 1000ms (editable parameter)
-image for 500ms (editable parameters)
-max response time: 10000ms (editable parameters)

the Inquisit script does NOT run a sizing procedure for the stimuli as done by Parker et al (2020)
The images are presented with a 7cm height (as based on the height the images roughly appeared
in the Parker et al, 2020, Chimeric Demo task after completion of the resizing procedure).
If the current screen is NOT big enough to present the image with these default dimensions,
the largest possible size for the current screen is created (the image size used is noted in the data files).

Stimuli

the stimuli are provided by the Behavioural Laterality Battery (Parker et al 2020)
and can be downloaded at:
https://osf.io/4bqe6/

if used, please cite reference articles.

Instructions

provided by Millisecond. The instructions are based on the ones used by
the Behavioural Laterality Battery (Parker et al 2020).
The instructions can edited in the provided htm-files.

Summary Data

File Name: chimericfaces_summary*.iqdat

Data Fields

NameDescription
inquisit.version Inquisit version number
computer.platform Device platform: win | mac |ios | android
startDate Date the session was run
startTime Time the session was run
subjectId Participant ID
groupId Group number
sessionId Session number
elapsedTime Session duration in ms
completed 0 = Test was not completed
1 = Test was completed
heightFaceImagesMM The height of the face images used (if screen allows, the image height should be -by default- 70mm)
propCorrectOverall The proportion of correct emotion selections
(correct = either one of the presented emotions was selected) across all test trials
meanCorrRTOverall The mean response time of selecting a correct emotion across all test trials
Chimeric Faces: Ch
countChLR Counts the number of times the (correct) left emotion in the presented image was selected
countChRR Counts the number of times the (correct) right emotion in the presented image was selected
countChIR Counts the number of times an unrelated emotion for the presented image was selected
countChNR Counts the number of times a no response was collected
Separate For Each Emotion
countAngerLeftChLR Counts the number of times the (correct) left emotion ('anger') in the presented angerleft-image was selected
countAngerLeftChRR Counts the number of times the (correct) right emotion (different from anger) in the presented angerleft-image was selected
countAngerLeftChIR Counts the number of times an unrelated emotion was selected for an angerleft-image
countAngerLeftChNR Counts the number of times no response was made for an angerleft-image
(same for disgustleft, happyleft, sadleft images)
Control Faces: Ctrl (Show The Same Emotion On Both Sides)
countCtrlCR Counts the number of times the correct emotion was selected
countCtrlIR Counts the number of times the incorrect emotion was selected
countCtrlNR Counts the number of no responses collected
Separate For Each Emotion
countAngerLeftCtrlCR Counts the number of times the emotion 'anger' was selected for anger control images ( anger presented on both sides)
countAngerLeftCtrlIR Counts the number of times an incorrect emotion was selected for anger control images ( anger presented on both sides)
countAngerLeftCtrlNR Counts the number of times no responses were selected for anger control images ( anger presented on both sides)
(same for disgust, happy, sad control images)

Raw Data

File Name: chimericfaces_raw*.iqdat

Data Fields

NameDescription
build Inquisit version number
computer.platform Device platform: win | mac |ios | android
date Date the session was run
time Time the session was run
subject Participant ID
group Group number
session Session number
heightFaceImagesMM The height of the face images used (if screen allows, the image height should be -by default- 70mm)
blockCode Name of the current block
blockNum Number of the current block
trialCode Name of the current trial
trialNum Number of the current trial
testBlockCounter Counts the test blocks run
index The currently selected itemnumber of the presented image 0-based selection
(first item has index = 0)
stim The presented image
leftEmotion The left emotion in the presented image
rightEmotion The right emotion in the presented image
chimericCategory 1 = control condition (both sides show the same image)
2 = chimeric condition (different emotions on left and right side)
response The selected response button (no response = 0)
selectedEmotion The selected emotion (no response = 0)
selectedFaceLaterality Left, right, none (= for incorrect emotion selections as well as no responses)
by default, if participants select the correct emotion for control (=only one emotion) images
'selectedFaceSide' will be 'left'
correct 1 = either one of the presented emotions was selected; 0 = otherwise
latency The response latency (in ms); measured from: onset of image

Parameters

The procedure can be adjusted by setting the following parameters.

NameDescriptionDefault
fixationDuration The fixation cross duration (in ms) 1000
imageDuration The image duration (in ms) 500
maxResponseTime The max. response time in ms 10000
heightFaceImagesMM The height of the faces in mm ( based on size of images in blb task when the screen was sized for credit card)70
fixationHeightMM The height of the fixation cross stimulus in mm20
numberTestBlocks The number of test blocks to run ( each test block runs 32 trials = 16 images x 2)4