Recognition of the facial emotional states in extraversion / neuroticism personality dimentions: the modulatory role of working memory

Recognition of the emotional states of others is considered an important factor in social communication. The goal of the curent research was to compare the ability to recognize facial emotional states in extraversion and neuroticism personality dimentions with regard to the modulatory role of working memory. 728 male and female students of Zanjan University were enrolled and completed the revised version of Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-R). Based on the final distribution of scores on the two dimensions of Extraversion and Neuroticism، 4 groups including stable extrovert، introvert stable، introvert and extrovert neuroticism (each comprising 30 subjects) were isolated. All subjects assigned to the above four groups were matched for age، sex and education level. To assess the workind memory، n-back test and images for emotional faces were administered to each subject. Results were analyzed using the mixed analysis of variance، multiple regression and analysis of covariance. Findings demonstrated a favorable performance in stable extroverts and a poor performance in introvert neurotic subjects. Regression analysis revealed that working memory capacity is a significant predictor of the ability to recognize facial emotion. In addition، one-way between-groups analysis of covariance showed that under the controlled effect the working memory capacity، there was no significant difference between the four groups in terms of the ability to recognize facial emotional states. Dimensions of personality and working memory-related processes play a central role in emotional information processing.