Facial Expression Flashcards
(37 cards)
major function of the face:
to convey emotion
some facial expressions are
emblematic
positive attitudes toward
other people and objects
Facial “sign vehicles” (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
*sign vehicles predict mortality
- 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
organization of facial muscles (d2l)
- eyes/brows
- nose/cheek
- mouth
facial emotions, 6 primary facial expressions of emotion
- happiness
- sadness
- anger
- surprise
- disgust
- fear
- now, contempt and pride seem to have some universality
the facial feedback hypothesis
- james (peripheralist) muscle activity >emotion
- cannon (centralist) cognitive appraisal >emotion
- facial feedback hypothesis: peripheralist
- facial muscle activity>emotion
Laird (1974) facial feedback
-had people hold smile and frown and those who were smiling felt happier, those who were frowning felt bad
further evidence of facial feedback
- lower eyebrows>mood becomes more negative
- raised eyebrows>more surprised by facts
- wrinkled noses>rated odors as more unpleasant
Even more evidence
- 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
still not convinced? grin and bear it
- 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.
Animal species-homologous facial displays in nonhuman primates
- grimace=fear, not happy
- tense-mouth display-anger, just like humans
- play face-happiness/joy, very similar to humans
Animal species-“executive monkey” study
- 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
Animal species-domestic dogs can decode human facial expressions study
- 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
Infants-encoding
- 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
infant decoding of facial expressions study
- 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
adult facial expression
- “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
smile onset duration
- computer generated images
- smile onset duration 133 vs. 533 ms
- long duration person judged more attractive and trustworthy
what will your future be like? look at your yearbook photo
- 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)
yearbook study results
- 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
cross cultural issues-innate
- 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
but…DISPLAY RULES
-in social situations, facial expressions of japanese and american students differ, but not when they were alone- rules about when to show emotion
decoding different emotion (easiest to hardest)
- happiness
- sadmess
- anger
- fear
- disgust
- surprise
- positive emotions are easier to decode than negative emotions in the face