Comparing two versions of the Chimeric Face Test: A pilot investigation

ABSTRACT

The Chimeric Face Test (CFT) is a widely used behavioral measure of degree of lateralization for emotion processing. The Pictures of Facial Affect (Ekman, 1976 [Pictures of facial affect. Consulting Psychologists Press.]) have often been used to create chimeras for this task but have widely been critiqued due to lack of ethnic diversity and small stimuli numbers. In this brief study participants (N = 45) completed two Chimeric Face Tests, one using the Pictures of Facial Affect and one using the NimStim facial stimuli (Tottenham et al., 2009 [The NimStim set of facial expressions: Judgments from untrained research participants. Psychiatry Research, 168(3), 242–249]). The laterality scores were compared across measures. The results show the two measures are related; laterality quotients showed a strong correlation between the two tasks. Participants showed a left-visual field bias on both tasks, indicative of a right-hemisphere bias for the processing of emotions. The NimStim Chimeric Face Test however was found to give a more conservative estimate of degree of lateralization. The NimStim Chimeric Face Test is discussed as a valid measure for examining lateralization for emotion processing, The extent to which different versions of the Chimeric Face Test are comparable is discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Lateralization for emotion processing
• Chimeric Face Test
• right-hemisphere
• laterality
• left-visual field bias

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The participants of this study did not give written consent for their data to be shared publicly.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.