Science of Emotion Chapter 5

what are the mechanics of facial expression

• Expressed by contractions of coordinated muscle groups which create folds/ wrinkles in the skin

• 43 muscles involved are anchored to the skin

• Allows muscles to control both sensory organs on the face 

Ex: closing/ opening eyes and changing the shape/surface of the face to express an emotion

• Have evolved to show clearer facial expressions

Ex: decreased facial hair, and increased pigmentation in skin tone (as compared to primates)

what are Proprioceptors

Proprioceptors are specialized sensory receptors located in muscles, tendons, and joints that provide the central nervous system with information about body position, movement, and muscle tension. They play a crucial role in balance and coordination by detecting changes in the body's posture and motion.

tell the brain how stretched or contracted a muscle is skeletal muscle

what are mechanoreceptors

• Mechanoreceptors = sensors that respond to pressure or movement

• They help us feel touch, vibration, and sound

• They send info to the brain about changes in the environment

provide info about changes in the position/warping of the skin of your face (facial muscles)

• Send signals to the brain when the skin is moving and when it is still

how do facial muscles receive info

info from the cortex, subcortical areas in the brain, via motor nerve cells from the brainstem

what is the facial nerve (7th cranial nerve)

 THE MOST IMPORTANT in causing the contraction of the muscles that make many facial expressions

The muscles of the forehead, eyebrows, and lips are controlled by the facial nerve

what does the oculomotor nerve control (3rd cranial nerve)

lifting of the eyelids and governs pupil dilation and the movements of the eyeball

what does the trigeminal nerve do? (5th cranial nerve)

innervates muscles used for chewing/clenching the jaw, involved in returning sensation from the face to the brain (5th cranial nerve)

2 Trigeminal nerves: 1 on each side of the face to provide motor/ sensory info for different aspects of the head/face

• Motor fibers tell muscles when/how to move

• Sensory nerve fibers send pain, touch, and temp sensation from your skin to brain

where does the Facial Motor Nucleus (VII) in the brain stem get info from?

• Motor cortex: especially for voluntary movement

• Subcortical areas associated with affect and reflex, such as the amygdala, brainstem, hypothalamus, that send info via the facial nerve

Facial muscles are attached to the skin of your face and work in groups to move…

the skin, skeletal muscles and move joints

what is the debate about the origin of fe?

A long-standing debate in emotion research is whether specific emotions are universal or a nonverbal language as a result of culture

Can be tested by: A) testing hypotheses about the adaptive functions of specific expressions and comparing human facial expressions to those of nonhumans (animals) and B) comparing human expressions across various cultures

what is the evolution/ function of fe (Darwin)

Darwin claimed facial expressions have evolved from functional movements that were adaptive for our ancestors bc they solved particular survival functions

Ex: feeling disgust at rotten food helped early humans avoid eating things that could make them sick, which helped them survive.

Some expressions manipulate our faces to regulate the amt of stimulation taken in thru various sensory channels:

• Eyes take in visual info (sight)

• Nose takes in olfactory info (smell)

• Mouth takes in gustatory info (taste)

evolution of anger

Action tendency: attack; facial movements can look like a snarl or showing teeth

evolution of fear (action tendency)

Action tendency; need to detect threats in the environment and signal fear to group members; facial movements can look like wide eyes to increase the visual field and flared nostrils to increase air intake

what did Susskind et al. (2008) discover about fear and fe

People made a fearful facial expression, their senses became more alert:

• Increased visual field = found targets faster

• Increased air intake = improved oxygen to run and an improved sense of smell

Fear expressions can help people detect threats mor efficient;y (useful for survival) 

However, disgust expressions shut off the senses to external stimuli

visual expressions as possible origins

• Emotions can be shown through body posture, ear position, and sounds (not just the face)

• In some species (like primates), facial expressions developed from movements used to make emotional sounds

• Over time, these facial movements became signals on their own

Example:

• Smiling changes the mouth/voice → makes speech higher & louder

• Eventually, a smile alone = happiness/friendliness, even without sound

how do vocalizations impact our expressions

• Increased pitch is considered submissive, friendly and non-threatening

• Decreased pitch is often associated with aggression bc large animals have lower pitches growls

ancestry and facial expressions

• Human facial expressions come from ancestor survival muscles (like eyebrow movements from ear muscles).

• Over time, these movements evolved into ways to communicate emotions.

• These are called homologous expressions → behaviors with the same evolutionary origin.

Ex: cats arch their backs/ puff up their fur when they are scared, similar to how humans tense their bodies to make themselves look bigger/ protect themselves when afraid/ threatened

universality of fe: cross-cultural research

Looks at whether people all over the world recognize the same emotions as signifying the same expression. Observers in different cultures match photos of facial expressions (anger, happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise). People around the globe tended to label the expressions with the same emotions

What did Ekman’s study of fear in non-colonized areas discover?

Studied people in isolated cultures with no exposure to Western fe. The participants were able to match the same fe to the same emotion, supporting the idea that some fe are universal

High agreement with the 6 basic emotions but also shame, embarrassment, compassion, amusement, and contempt

what did the Blind vs Sighted Athlete study (Masumoto & Willingham) show?

Compared contingentially blind athletes to sighted ones and found no difference in fe after winning or losing (both would smile or cry)

Blind people cant learn facial expressions by watching which suggests fe are innate not just learned

Blind children show similar fe as sighted children: smiling during play, pouting during punishment, crying in unfamiliar situations

what do many contemporary researchers endorse regarding fe?

interactionist perspectives- both biological and sociocultural determinants of fe are taken into account

what do fe’s convey/ the debate surrounding them?

• Serve a communicative purpose with biological functions

Debate whether fe communicate a persons true internal feelings or reflect the persons desire to influence other people

what is read-out view in fe?

fe reflects a persons true emotion

ex: you feel fear, your face shows it

• Happens bc of an innate affect program (inborn system linking emotion to facial muscles)

• Facial muscles automatically express internal feelings externally

• Even when trying to hide emotions, true feelings make “leak out” thru small facial movements

Ex: a slight snarl of the nose when angry

what is the behavioral ecology view of what fe conveys?

• Fe evolved to communicate social intentions, not just emotions

• Show what a person wants to do/ how they want others to respond

Ex: a smile signifies friendliness/ desire to affiliate, usually shown during emotional interactions (can be stronger with people around)

what did Chovill (1999) study of what fe convey’s show?

Filmed participants' expressions while they listened to stories about close calls, participants heard the stories either by tape, phone, confederate, or face-to-face 

• Displays of sympathetic distress, such as gaps, grimaces, and wincing, were more frequent in the more social contexts

Ex: face to face = a greater reaction bc there is greater social interaction and context

• Fe are influenced by social context and other factors that affect expressiveness

1. How familiar you are with the other person

2. Wether the situation was +/-

3. How intense the emotion is

what is the facial feedback hypothesis (influence of fe on Emotional Experience/ Perception)

facial expressions contribute to our own emotional status thru feedback from the face to the brain

• Can influence how strongly you feel an emotion

• Making a face that matches the emotion (congruent) makes the emotion increase

• Hiding/ making a different facial expression than what you're feeling (incongruent) makes the emotion decrease. You hide the emotion, you may not feel the emotion as strongly

Ex: you frown, you may feel sadder

Vulnerable to demand characteristics- the participants may have guessed what the researchers were studying/ therefore told them what they wanted to hear

what were the results of testing facial feedback hypothesis

• Block facial movements with incongruent action

Ex: holding a pen in mouth while completing an emotion-related task

• People instructed to imitate angry facial expressions had increased pupil dilation and skin conductance ( 2 indicators of autonomic arousal) than those who just looked at angry expressions

• Botox injections into the corrugator muscle reduce depressive symptoms

• Effects tend to be small-moderate (still experience emotions with expressions)

what is the theory of emotion perception (Embodied Stimulation/ Emotion Perception)

recognizing the meaning underlying the emotional expressions of others

what is embodied simulation?

your brain automatically recreates someone elses fe/emotions in your own brain/body

Purpose: helps you understand what another person is feeling automatically and quickly

Location: Motor- motor cortex, premotor cortex

 Emotional- amygdala, insula, anterior cingulate cortex

 Mirror System - inferior frontal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule

what is facial mimicry?

 tiny unconscious contractions of facial muscles - your face may slightly copy others without realizing it

what is the step by step process of facial mimicry?

1. You see someone's expression

2. Your brain stimulates that expression internally

3. Your body produces a small version of the emotion

4. This helps you recognize the emotion

Ex: your friend looks surprised, your brain stimulates that expression, allowing you to quickly understand that she feels shocked

• You understand emotions by internally “recreating” their emotional state

• Giver receives immediate “empathic” understanding of what emotion the other is expressing

what is the evidence of Embodied Stimulation

• People automatically copy others’ facial expressions (fast & unconscious)

• This helps us understand emotions better

• If you can’t mimic (or your face is forced wrong) →
  → slower & less accurate emotion recognition

Example:

• Watching something funny while trying to frown

Key point:

• Mimicry is most helpful for subtle or unclear emotions

• We mimic more with people who are:

  • Powerful

  • Liked

  • Close to us

what are bodily expressions of emotions

• Emotions come with action tendencies = urges to act a certain way

• Each emotion (joy, sadness, anger) has a typical behavior linked to it

• These show up as body expressions

Example:

• Anger → clenched fists urge to hit something even if what is causing your anger isnt there

can people recognize emotions from body movement alone even without seeing the face?

YES Emotions have specific, recognizable body movements

• The body can help express and recognize emotions in others

• Embodiment helps you understand emotions thru watching body movements

what is prosody?

Prosody- nonverbal components of speech that convey info, particularly emotion info 

• To an extent affective signals in the voice are uncontrollable

Ex: voice shaking when nervous

what are the key properties researchers attempt to identify in posed or spontaneous vocal expressions of emotion of in non-verbal affective bursts (gasps, laughs, cries)

Key Properties: pitch, loudness, rhythm, tempo, nasality, breathiness, glottal excitation (different vowels and consonants)

• Can reveal the degree of psychological arousal but not specific emotional states

Ex: anger/joy involve increased pitch and loudness which equals increased psychological arousal states

• Possibly analyzing other features will reveal increased specificity 

Ex: vocal attack (onset of sound), jitter (irregularities in pitch over time)

what research was done on vocalization in emotion and what did it show?

• Meta-analysis of 60 experiments found high-cross agreement/ recognition in emotional vocalization (Sauter 2010)

• Possibly up to 22 different affective communications can be recognized (Simon-Thomas, 2009)

what are the often overlooked features of vocal affects?

• Types of interval (dissonant v consonant, major v minor)

• Wave complexity

• Direction of pitch changing (rising v falling)

• Human music and tamarind monkey vocalizations use similar patterns to convery similar emotions

Ex: dissonant intervals = threat/ alarm

                  Minor intervals = sadness/ sympathy

      Major intervals = happiness/ positive emotions

• Human music/ primate calls use similar sound to communicate emotions, suggesting music evolved from emotional vocal communication

can emotion be expressed through multiple channels: face, body and voice at the same time?

• We understand emotions best when we see the whole person (face + body + voice)

• The brain quickly combines all these cues

• When cues match → easier & faster to recognize emotion

• When cues don’t match → harder & slower

Key point:

• Body language can be more important than facial expressions

Example:

• Happy face + sad body → confusing

• In strong emotions → face may be unclear, so we rely more on body posture

what is the summary of chapter 5

• Human faces seem to have evolved to be a clear and expressive channel for communicating emotion

• Certain fe have identifiable functional origins and are observed in other mammals

• Culture/ learning shape how emotions are expressed to some extent

• Expressions reflect both internal feelings and the social intentions of the expressor

• Info from the face feeds back to the brain to moderate the emotional experience, and this appears to facilitate the recognition of emotion in other people as well

• The face, body, and voice convey recognizable emotion signals, and info from all of these channels contributes to the whole person's emotional expression