Facial Expression Flashcards
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