COMPUTER METHODS FOR ASSESSING GENERAL MIMIC ACTIVITY DURING PERCEPTION OF SUBJECTIVELY SIGNIFICANT INFORMATION (IN THE CONTEXT OF FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGICAL EXAMINATION TASKS)
The research aims at studying the process of perception and recognition of another person's face by analyzing mimic activity of the perceiving subject. The experimental research was carried out at KSU named after K.E. Tsiolkovsky. The sample consisted of 41 students of the Institute of Psychology (33 girls). The experiment consisted of sequentially presenting participants with visual stimuli with pictures of people from three categories: people known to the participant personally; well-known, easily recognizable persons; and strangers. Participants were tasked with identifying people in the photographs. A series of stimuli was presented four times while changing the order of photos. FaceReader, an automatic facial expression analysis software based on Facial Action Coding System (FACS), was used to analyze the video images. Arousal parameter, which characterizes the total facial mimic activity during the perception of the stimulus, was used as the main analyzed parameter. Differences in the level of the participants' mimic activity during perception of stimuli of various categories were revealed. The highest level of facial mimic activity among the experiment participants was observed when perceiving the faces of people with whom they were personally acquainted. The lowest level was observed when perceiving the faces of well-known people. This pattern was observed only while the first stimuli presentation. The total mimic activity is shown to decrease during the first three presentations and to reach a certain minimum level at the fourth presentation. The revealed effects have both applied value for the development of the given method in the context of forensic practice and are of independent theoretical interest. The research was supported by the RFBR, project No. 18-013-01045.