On The Flexibility Of Self - Information Processing From The Perspective Of Evolution

Self has an important significance for the individual, with unique motivation andemotional meaning. Self-face recognition is an important symbol ofself-consciousness. Humans have processing advantages towards self-face, which willchange according to different relationships and contexts. From Ihe evolutionarypsychological perspective，this study adopted the threatening and romantic situationsto stimulate the specific motivation. Then, we chose the self-face and intimate’s faceas the object to research the recognition speed for face and sensitivity to the relevantinformation. Meanwhile, this study researched the dynamic changes to the processingmodel and self-boundary under different circumstances, and researched the specificityand flexibility of self cognition processing.In the first experiment, eight participant couples were asked to identifyorientations of self faces, lovers’ faces and strangers’ faces under Lhe safe andthreatening situations. Those lover participants were in: a high-threat context (seeing ahorror movie in a dark and closed room) corresponding to the self-protection motivescondition and a safe context (in a bright room) making up the control condition. Theexperience results show that: in bright and safe context, participants responded to theself-face recognition significantly faster than lover’s and strangers’ faces, and tolover’s faccs recognition faster than the strangers’ face. It illustrates that the self-faceprocessing advantages are widespread and the individual also has special processingfor intimates’ information. In the darkness and closed laboratory, there were nosigniifcant difference on reaction time between responses to self faces and lovers’faces, but significantly faster than the responses to strangers’ faces when participantssaw a horror movie thus had the self-protection motives. This illustrates that: after thethreatening context having activated the sclf-protcction motives, the individual couldlfexibly adjust the self cognitive processing and the self-boundary expanded to theintimates, in order to obtain security and to protect themselves. In the second expeirment, ten participant groups were asked to identify’orientations of self faces, lovers faces, opposite sex stran’gers faces (attractive orunattractive) under the neutral and romantic situations. Those lover participants weresituated: a romantic context (seeing a romantic movie)，or no motives were aroused ina neutral context (seeing a scenic movie). The cxpcirence results show that: self-facerecognition advantage exits in the neutral context; and in the romantic context,self-face recognition reaction is accelerated and processing advantages are enhanced;at the same time, the face recognition reaction to the attractive opposite sex is alsoaccelerated, which is similar to that to the lovers. It illustrates that: atfer the romanticsituation having enabled the mating motive, the individual will improve theself-awareness and be sensitive to the attractive opposite sex，in order to enhance thepossibilities of reproduction.From the evolutionary psychological perspective, this study chooses the self-facerecognition processing as the focus, and then finds that self-cognition has uniqueness、and lfexibility. In the threat and romantic context, the individual will change thereactions to the different faces，and this is the adaptability to the environment, whichreflects the dynamic change of self-boundary and the endeavor of survival andreproduction. The evolutionary psychology complements the theoretical reseacrh onface recognition and riches the theory of self-cognition and interpersonal relationship.