Emotional Facial Expressions

Question 1

What things are universally agreed across theories about facial expressions?

Answer 1

All emotions expressed through the face. Universal agreement on interpretation. Facial expressions are automatic and independent of environment. Universal innate and specific mapping of facial expressions to underlying feelings. Facial expressions can also be seen as a social construct

Question 2

What is an example of a study that demonstrated the universality of facial expressions?

Answer 2

Ekman and Friesen 1975 cross cultural similarity of expressions in tribe in Papua New Guinea

Question 3

What studies have demonstrated cultural differences in frequency of expression?

Answer 3

Matsumoto et al 1988: japanese less negative reactions in society. Naab and Russell 2007: effects are weak for non-posed expressions. Universality may not be as clear cut as expected

Question 4

What is one of the main ways that infant facial expressions are studied?

Answer 4

Reactions to different tastes. Prototypical taste expressions for water, sweet, sour, bitter (Steiner 1997)

Question 5

What do taste expression studies show?

Answer 5

Similar taste responses in other animals (Steiner and Glaser 1995), but responses are just related to different intensities of pleasure vs displeasure (Berridge 2000)

Question 6

What is differential emotions theory?

Answer 6

Facial expressions are innate and first visible on the face at certain period of development relating to when the emotion is first felt - innate and specific, not inhibited (Izard and Malatesta 1987)

Question 7

What are examples of the fact that there is often a poor relationship between situation and expression in infants?

Answer 7

Fear is rarely shown to strangers. Surprise is rarely shown to violation of object permanence (it is surprising to them, but they don’t show it). Sadness, anger and pain expressions are undifferentiated

Question 8

What do studies of expressions in congenitally blind individuals show?

Answer 8

Posed facial expressions by blind indificuals poorly recognised (maybe because posed need learning in visual domain) (Galati et al 1997). Spontaneous expressions similar in blind and sighted individuals (Matsumoto and Willingham 2009 Paralympic study)

Question 9

What is the facial feedback hypothesis?

Answer 9

Notion that facially expressed emotion affects feelings (or determines them)

Question 10

What is Mobius syndrome?

Answer 10

Congenital disorder producing facial paralysis. Individuals are still able to recognise and feel facial expressions. Facial expression does not determine emotional feelings (Calder et al 2000)

Question 11

What do studies of unconscious expression induction show?

Answer 11

Posed smiling has positive effect and frowning has a negative effect on mood. Fear face for 10s increases hear rate 8bpm. Posing angry face increases heart rate and peripheral blood flow. In general, support for weak version of facial feedback hypothesis (Ekman et al 1983)

Question 12

How can facial expressions be systematically coded?

Answer 12

Maximally Discriminative Affect Coding System (MAX) (Izard 1979) relates facial movements to 8 different emotions. FACs (Ekman and Friesen 1978) enables all possible facial movements to be encoded along with their intensity (need databases to match expressions to underlying emotions)

Question 13

How did Duchenne study facial musculature?

Answer 13

Electrically stimulated different muscles in an individual with facial anaesthesia, and produced facial expressions. Led to creation of ‘Duchenne smile’ which shows different between social and real smiles. Social smiles include voluntary control over mouth movement but lack of voluntary control of Orbicularis Oculi

Question 14

What are computerised techniques for facial expression recognition?

Answer 14

Feature based (FACs) and appearance based. Current implementations work well with posed expressions but not spontaneous expressions (differences between posed and spontaneous, dynamics of facial expressions, variation in emotion)

Question 15

What does looking at the face tell us about feelings?

Answer 15

Understanding the feelings of individuals who cannot otherwise communicate. Focus often also on deception and pain

Question 16

How is deception detected?

Answer 16

Across 206 studies, untrained participants demonstrated 54% accuracy (Brik and Mann 2001). Studies show this is from leakage of facial expressions (inability to prevent expression, or micro expressions)

Question 17

What makes studies of pain difficult?

Answer 17

It is highly subjective and difficult to communicate. Role of situation and attention. Individuals in pain may not be able to communicate well, as in cases of dementia/infancy/learning disabilities etc. Also people are surprisingly poor at recognising cues to pain, including care professionals (Prkachin et al 1994)

Question 18

What are characteristics of a facial expression of pain?

Answer 18

Brow lowering, opening of mouth, raising of cheeks and closing of eyes (Prkachin et al 1992)

Question 19

What was one way of attempting to overcome the problems of detecting pain in older adults and dementia?

Answer 19

Using scales like the aces pain scale in non-verbal individuals, though this has shown poor reliability in dementia (Helme 2006)

Question 20

What were the original assumptions of infants expressions of pain?

Answer 20

Notion of painful expressions as reflexive in infancy. Lack of interest until recently. Notion that infants will express felt pain due to lack of social knowledge and constraint, and expectation of low variability in pain expression

Question 21

How do studies now investigate infant pain, and what do these studies show?

Answer 21

Study expressions during heel lance procedure. Infants (43h old) show similarities in facial responses and are most expressive when alert (Grunau and Craig 1987). These responses peak at times of pain and are low at other times in 32 week infants (Grunau et al 1998)