Facial Expression

Question 1

major function of the face:

Answer 1

to convey emotion

Question 2

some facial expressions are

Answer 2

emblematic

Question 3

positive attitudes toward

Answer 3

other people and objects

Question 4

Facial “sign vehicles” (4)

Answer 4

• static: remains constant (face shape)
• slow: reliably change with age (markers of your age like wrinkles or sagging cheeks)
• rapid: change in a matter of seconds (facial expressions)
• artificial: cosmetics or facial treatments used to enhance beauty or combat age

Question 5

*sign vehicles predict mortality

Answer 5

• photos taken of 292 people, 82-84 years of age
• Students rated apparent age of person
• ratings spanned 63-85 years
• 108 of the 292 participants died in the following 6 years
• the hazzard of dying was predicted by how old the person was judged to be in the photo
• 8% greater mortality hazard per year of rated age

Question 6

organization of facial muscles (d2l)

Answer 6

• eyes/brows
• nose/cheek
• mouth

Question 7

facial emotions, 6 primary facial expressions of emotion

Answer 7

• happiness
• sadness
• anger
• surprise
• disgust
• fear
• now, contempt and pride seem to have some universality

Question 8

the facial feedback hypothesis

Answer 8

• james (peripheralist) muscle activity >emotion
• cannon (centralist) cognitive appraisal >emotion
• facial feedback hypothesis: peripheralist
• facial muscle activity>emotion

Question 9

Laird (1974) facial feedback

Answer 9

-had people hold smile and frown and those who were smiling felt happier, those who were frowning felt bad

Question 10

further evidence of facial feedback

Answer 10

• lower eyebrows>mood becomes more negative
• raised eyebrows>more surprised by facts
• wrinkled noses>rated odors as more unpleasant

Question 11

Even more evidence

Answer 11

• sun-induced frowning-same facial expression/muscle activation of the expression of anger
• survey people walking into the sun with or without sunglasses
• people without sunglasses scored higher on measure of anger and aggression

Question 12

still not convinced? grin and bear it

Answer 12

• simulate smiles by holding chopsticks in mouth
• stress: hand in ice water for one minute
• people induced to assume a Deuchesme smile had lowest heart rate during the stressful task.

Question 13

Animal species-homologous facial displays in nonhuman primates

Answer 13

• grimace=fear, not happy
• tense-mouth display-anger, just like humans
• play face-happiness/joy, very similar to humans

Question 14

Animal species-“executive monkey” study

Answer 14

• monkey in restraining chair
• lights go off, 6 seconds later-shock
• prevents shock with lever press within 6 seconds
• lever was taken away from “stimulus” monkey and given to “responder” monkey
• responder monkey also hooked up
• responder monkey could only see face of stimulus monkey on tv
• responder monkey prevented shocks at rate of 92% by just watching the facial expression of stimulus monkey

Question 15

Animal species-domestic dogs can decode human facial expressions study

Answer 15

• sausage, garlic, or wood shavings in box
• human looked in box with happy, disgust, or neutral facial expressions
• dogs used the experimenter’s happy facial expression to locate the hidden food-went to box associated with food with 55% accuracy

Question 16

Infants-encoding

Answer 16

• facial muscles formed at birth
• distinct expression early in infancy
• social smiling 3-4 weeks, full blown in 3 months
• imitation in 1-2 days
• no genuine emotion until 18 months?
• management of emotional expression 6-10 years

Question 17

infant decoding of facial expressions study

Answer 17

• adults posed facial expressions to neonates(???)
• neonates visual fixation and facial movement was measured
• neonates showed difference visual fixation patterns in response to different facial expression
• observer could guess which face was being posed by just observing neonates reactions
• mean age of subjects: 36 hours

Question 18

adult facial expression

Answer 18

• “phoney smiles”
• slightly assymetrical (stronger on left)
• may occur at socially inappropriate times
• do not involve “crinkle-eye” appearance
• excessively long apex durations, short onset times, and irregular offset times

Question 19

smile onset duration

Answer 19

• computer generated images
• smile onset duration 133 vs. 533 ms
• long duration person judged more attractive and trustworthy

Question 20

what will your future be like? look at your yearbook photo

Answer 20

• pos. emotion, personality > personal resources
• 1958 college yearbook photo
• coded for positive affect (Duchenne smile)
• follow up measures at age 27, 43, 52 (30 years later)

Question 21

yearbook study results

Answer 21

• women with more positive facial affect were rated higher on affiliation, competence, and lower in negativity
• observers expected rewarding interaction
• positive emotion-more likely to be married at 27, less likely to be single into middle adulthood
• higher marital satisfaction at 52
• global well being (emotional and physical health) higher at 21, 27, 43, and 52

Question 22

cross cultural issues-innate

Answer 22

• encoding and decoding of primary facial emotions is universal
• research with remote cultures has ruled out social learning of facial emotions )e.g. through media)
• congenitally blind and deaf children show same expressions of emotion

Question 23

but…DISPLAY RULES

Answer 23

-in social situations, facial expressions of japanese and american students differ, but not when they were alone- rules about when to show emotion

Question 24

decoding different emotion (easiest to hardest)

Answer 24

• happiness
• sadmess
• anger
• fear
• disgust
• surprise
• positive emotions are easier to decode than negative emotions in the face

Question 25

sex differences in decoding facial expression

Answer 25

- females perform better than males - sex difference already evident in childhood - 53% girls perform above average - 46% of boys - no increase in sex differences over time - neurobehavioral maturation model (early in life- hard to prove, born with it - social scaffolding model (later in childhood)

Question 26

decoding facial emotion and gender

Answer 26

- gender neutral computer images - varying expressions of anger and happiness - subjects quicker to label "angry" faces as male and "happy" as females - signals for facial expression of emotion and masculinity/femininity have merged over time

Question 27

alcoholism and facial decoding

Answer 27

- recovering alcoholics and control subjects viewed slides - multiple choice test - lower accuracy in alcoholic group - unaware of their deficit - more interpersonal problems in alcoholic group - these were negatively associated with their performance on the facial recognition task

Question 28

autism and facial decoding

Answer 28

- autism- expressive and receptive communication deficits - adults with and without autism shown faces and shapes - press button for female face or circle - fMRI while performing task - autism and control group performed as well at face and shape recognition - but different brain regions activated - autism: aberrant and individual-specific regions were activated (compared to amygdala in control)

Question 29

social anxiety and decoding facial expressions

Answer 29

- over arousal in social situations - children shown photos of positive, neutral, negative facial expressions - press buttons for each - anxious and nonanxious children had comparable performance - but anxious children saw emotions in neutral face - anxious children took longer to respond than non-anxious

Question 30

facial decoding of emotion and borderline personality disorder

Answer 30

- slowly morphing computer generated face - 20 people with BPD, 20 healthy controls - negative expression: BPD detected on average when 73% expressed, control 82% (Paul Ekman d2l), BPD actually quicker - pos: BPD detected at 48% expressed vs. 69% in controls - people with BPD quicker to pick up on subtle expressions - over reaction to minor incidents with others - also, people with BPD less accurate than controls in recognizing facial displays of anger and disgust - they also misattribute emotions to neutral (no emotions) facial expression "you look mad"

Question 31

schizophrenia and facial decoding

Answer 31

- patients perceived ambiguous and subtle facial expressions as happy, rather than angry, regardless of social contexts - faces were shown with a story: being praised (+), blamed (-), or inquiry (neutral) - even in early stage of illness, people with schizo have abnormal perceptions of facial expression

Question 32

pretty face: easy on the brain

Answer 32

- preference for looking at attractive facecs - 4 yr olds and adults viewed faces - attractive/unattractive (pre screened by college students) - scrambled/normal - press button to classify scrambled/normal - both groups took longer to classify unattractive faces - brain activity in 4 year olds and adults higher when gazing at unattractive faces - beauty: average of groups feature - people like prototypes easy to categorize

Question 33

mothers' decoding of infant facial expressions

Answer 33

- first time mothers vs never mothers - attention capture task - infant faces, in general, and emotional infant faces in particular, engage attention compared to adult faces - for mothers, infant faces were more salient - adaptive behavioral change with parenthood

Question 34

oxytocin and facial decoding

Answer 34

- oxytocin (OT): neuropeptide secreted from posterior pituitary - crucial role in mammalian social behavior - trust, cooperation, relaxation around others - intranasal OT administration enhances emotional recognition of faces - especially pronounced effect on happy and fear faces

Question 35

Interactive Aspects of facial expressions

Answer 35

- Dimberg (1982): look at happy and sad faces - Meltzoff: infant imitation (i.e. tongue) - Hatfield (1990): watch video of man telling happy/sad story - Provine (1986): yawning

Question 36

helping people with a babyface

Answer 36

- computer gen. faces - attached to resume - "lost" in US and Kenya - measure of helping=return - more baby face resumes returned in both cultures - babyface elicits helping response

Question 37

measurement of facial expression

Answer 37

- human judgments: observer judgment, direct measurement (muscle actions) - physiological measurement: facial EMG (electromygrophy)