Does watching happy expressions make us happy? Facial mimicry and emotional contagion to dynamic emotional facial expressions

1996 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ursula Hess ◽  
Sylvie Blairy
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Emotional Contagion ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Facial Mimicry

scholarly journals Enhanced emotional and motor responses to live versus videotaped dynamic facial expressions

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chun-Ting Hsu ◽  
Wataru Sato ◽  
Sakiko Yoshikawa
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Emg Activity ◽  
Subjective Ratings ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Facial Mimicry ◽  
Corrugator Supercilii ◽  
Dynamic Facial Expressions

Abstract Facial expression is an integral aspect of non-verbal communication of affective information. Earlier psychological studies have reported that the presentation of prerecorded photographs or videos of emotional facial expressions automatically elicits divergent responses, such as emotions and facial mimicry. However, such highly controlled experimental procedures may lack the vividness of real-life social interactions. This study incorporated a live image relay system that delivered models’ real-time performance of positive (smiling) and negative (frowning) dynamic facial expressions or their prerecorded videos to participants. We measured subjective ratings of valence and arousal and facial electromyography (EMG) activity in the zygomaticus major and corrugator supercilii muscles. Subjective ratings showed that the live facial expressions were rated to elicit higher valence and more arousing than the corresponding videos for positive emotion conditions. Facial EMG data showed that compared with the video, live facial expressions more effectively elicited facial muscular activity congruent with the models’ positive facial expressions. The findings indicate that emotional facial expressions in live social interactions are more evocative of emotional reactions and facial mimicry than earlier experimental data have suggested.

scholarly journals Perceiving Positive Facial Expression Can Relieve Depressive Moods: The Effect of Emotional Contagion on Mood in People With Subthreshold Depression

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuko Yamashita ◽  
Tetsuya Yamamoto
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Emotional Contagion ◽  
Subthreshold Depression ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Emotional Faces ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Mood Score ◽  
Happy Mood ◽  
Sad Mood

Emotional contagion is a phenomenon by which an individual’s emotions directly trigger similar emotions in others. We explored the possibility that perceiving others’ emotional facial expressions affect mood in people with subthreshold depression (sD). Around 49 participants were divided into the following four groups: participants with no depression (ND) presented with happy faces; ND participants presented with sad faces; sD participants presented with happy faces; and sD participants presented with sad faces. Participants were asked to answer an inventory about their emotional states before and after viewing the emotional faces to investigate the influence of emotional contagion on their mood. Regardless of depressive tendency, the groups presented with happy faces exhibited a slight increase in the happy mood score and a decrease in the sad mood score. The groups presented with sad faces exhibited an increased sad mood score and a decreased happy mood score. These results demonstrate that emotional contagion affects the mood in people with sD, as well as in individuals with ND. These results indicate that emotional contagion could relieve depressive moods in people with sD. It demonstrates the importance of the emotional facial expressions of those around people with sD such as family and friends from the viewpoint of emotional contagion.

scholarly journals The effects of facial attractiveness on spontaneous facial mimicry.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katlyn Peck
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Facial Attractiveness ◽  
Social Bonding ◽  
Facial Muscle ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Facial Mimicry ◽  
Facial Movements ◽  
Emotional Perception ◽  
The Relationship

When individuals are presented with emotional facial expressions they spontaneously react with brief, distinct facial movements that ‘mimic’ the presented faces. While the effects of facial mimicry on emotional perception and social bonding have been well documented, the role of facial attractiveness on the elicitation of facial mimicry is unknown. We hypothesized that facial mimicry would increase with more attractive faces. Facial movements were recorded with electromyography upon presentation of averaged and original stimuli while ratings of attractiveness and intensity were obtained. In line with existing findings, emotionally congruent responses were observed in relevant facial muscle regions. Unexpectedly, the strength of observers’ facial mimicry responses decreased with more averaged faces, despite being rated perceptually as more attractive. These findings suggest that facial attractiveness moderates the degree of facial mimicry muscle movements elicited in observers. The relationship between averageness, attractiveness and mimicry is discussed in light of this counterintuitive finding.

scholarly journals The effects of facial attractiveness on spontaneous facial mimicry.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katlyn Peck
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Facial Attractiveness ◽  
Social Bonding ◽  
Facial Muscle ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Facial Mimicry ◽  
Facial Movements ◽  
Emotional Perception ◽  
The Relationship

When individuals are presented with emotional facial expressions they spontaneously react with brief, distinct facial movements that ‘mimic’ the presented faces. While the effects of facial mimicry on emotional perception and social bonding have been well documented, the role of facial attractiveness on the elicitation of facial mimicry is unknown. We hypothesized that facial mimicry would increase with more attractive faces. Facial movements were recorded with electromyography upon presentation of averaged and original stimuli while ratings of attractiveness and intensity were obtained. In line with existing findings, emotionally congruent responses were observed in relevant facial muscle regions. Unexpectedly, the strength of observers’ facial mimicry responses decreased with more averaged faces, despite being rated perceptually as more attractive. These findings suggest that facial attractiveness moderates the degree of facial mimicry muscle movements elicited in observers. The relationship between averageness, attractiveness and mimicry is discussed in light of this counterintuitive finding.

scholarly journals Children's Facial Mimicry to Dynamic Emotional Facial Expressions and Their Emotional Empathy

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 433-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hei-Rhee Ghim ◽  
천영운 ◽  
문은옥 ◽  
Min Park ◽  
엄진섭 ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Emotional Empathy ◽  
Facial Mimicry

Facial Reactivity and Attentional Processing of Facial Expressions and Gaze Direction

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 254-266
Author(s):  
Jonathan W. L. Kettle ◽  
Nicholas B. Allen
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Gaze Direction ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Attentional Processing ◽  
Attentional Allocation ◽  
Facial Mimicry ◽  
Facial Electromyography ◽  
Fearful Faces ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Valence And Arousal

Abstract. Patterns of facial reactivity and attentional allocation to emotional facial expressions, and how these are moderated by gaze direction, are not clearly established. Among a sample of undergraduate university students, aged between 17 and 22 years (76% female), corrugator and zygomatic reactivity, as measured by facial electromyography, and attention allocation, as measured by the startle reflex and startle-elicited N100, was examined while viewing happy, neutral, angry and fearful facial expressions, which were presented at either 0- or 30-degree gaze. Results indicated typically observed facial mimicry to happy faces but, unexpectedly, “smiling” facial responses to fearful, and to a lesser extent, angry faces. This facial reactivity was not influenced by gaze direction. Furthermore, emotional facial expressions did not elicit increased attentional allocation. Likewise, matched facial expressions did not elicit increased attentional allocation. Rather, happy and fearful faces with direct (0°) gaze elicited increased controlled attentional allocation, and averted (30°) gaze faces, regardless of emotional expression, elicited preferential, early cortical processing. These findings suggest typical facial mimicry to happy faces, but unexpected facial reactivity to angry and fearful faces, perhaps due to an attempt to regulate social bonds during threat perception. Findings also suggest a divergence in controlled versus preferential, early cortical attentional processing for direct compared to averted gaze faces. These findings relate to young, mostly female, adults attending university. The experiment should be repeated with a larger sample drawn from the general community, with a broader age range and gender balance, and with a stimulus set with validated subjective valence and arousal ratings. This can reduce Type II error and establish normative patterns of facial reactivity and attentional processing of emotional facial expressions with different gaze directions.

scholarly journals Blocking facial mimicry during binocular rivalry modulates visual awareness of others’ facial expressions of emotion

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Quettier ◽  
Filippo Gambarota ◽  
Naotsugu Tsuchiya ◽  
Paola Sessa
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Binocular Rivalry ◽  
Visual Awareness ◽  
Simulation Models ◽  
Conscious Perception ◽  
Expression Recognition ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Facial Mimicry ◽  
Facial Expressions Of Emotion ◽  
Happy Expression

Several previous studies have interfered with the observer’s facial mimicry during a variety of facial expression recognition tasks providing evidence in favor of the role of facial mimicry and sensorimotor activity in emotion processing. In this theoretical context, a particularly intriguing facet has been neglected, namely whether blocking facial mimicry modulates conscious perception of facial expressions of emotions. To address this issue, we used a binocular rivalry paradigm, in which two dissimilar stimuli presented to the two eyes alternatingly dominate conscious perception. On each trial, female participants (N = 32) were exposed to a rivalrous pair of a neutral and a happy expression of the same individual through anaglyph glasses in two conditions: in one, they could freely use their facial mimicry, in the other they had to keep a chopstick between their lips, constraining the mobility of the zygomatic muscle and producing ‘noise’ for sensorimotor simulation. We found that blocking facial mimicry affected the mean duration of perceptual dominance favoring neutral faces, but it did not change the time before the first dominance was established. Taken together, our results open a door to future investigation of the intersection between sensorimotor simulation models and conscious perception of emotional facial expressions.

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