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Vergallito A, Mattavelli G, Gerfo EL, Anzani S, Rovagnati V, Speciale M, Vinai P, Vinai P, Vinai L, Lauro LJR. Explicit and Implicit Responses of Seeing Own vs. Others' Emotions: An Electromyographic Study on the Neurophysiological and Cognitive Basis of the Self-Mirroring Technique. Front Psychol 2020; 11:433. [PMID: 32296363 PMCID: PMC7136519 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00433] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/11/2019] [Accepted: 02/25/2020] [Indexed: 01/29/2023] Open
Abstract
Facial mimicry is described by embodied cognition theories as a human mirror system-based neural mechanism underpinning emotion recognition. This could play a critical role in the Self-Mirroring Technique (SMT), a method used in psychotherapy to foster patients’ emotion recognition by showing them a video of their own face recorded during an emotionally salient moment. However, dissociation in facial mimicry during the perception of own and others’ emotions has not been investigated so far. In the present study, we measured electromyographic (EMG) activity from three facial muscles, namely, the zygomaticus major (ZM), the corrugator supercilii (CS), and the levator labii superioris (LLS) while participants were presented with video clips depicting their own face or other unknown faces expressing anger, happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, or a neutral emotion. The results showed that processing self vs. other expressions differently modulated emotion perception at the explicit and implicit muscular levels. Participants were significantly less accurate in recognizing their own vs. others’ neutral expressions and rated fearful, disgusted, and neutral expressions as more arousing in the self condition than in the other condition. Even facial EMG evidenced different activations for self vs. other facial expressions. Increased activation of the ZM muscle was found in the self condition compared to the other condition for anger and disgust. Activation of the CS muscle was lower for self than for others’ expressions during processing a happy, sad, fearful, or neutral emotion. Finally, the LLS muscle showed increased activation in the self condition compared to the other condition for sad and fearful expressions but increased activation in the other condition compared to the self condition for happy and neutral expressions. Taken together, our complex pattern of results suggests a dissociation at both the explicit and implicit levels in emotional processing of self vs. other emotions that, in the light of the Emotion in Context view, suggests that STM effectiveness is primarily due to a contextual–interpretative process that occurs before that facial mimicry takes place.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Emanuele Lo Gerfo
- Clinical Psychology Service of Mediterranean Institute for Transplantation and Advanced Specialized Therapies (IRCSS IsMeTT), Palermo, Italy
| | - Stefano Anzani
- Department of Neuroscience, Imaging and Clinical Sciences, "G. d'Annunzio" University of Chieti-Pescara, Chieti, Italy
| | - Viola Rovagnati
- Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
| | | | - Piergiuseppe Vinai
- "GNOSIS" Research and Psychotherapy Group, Mondovì, Italy.,Studi Cognitivi, Cognitive Psychotherapy School and Research Center, Milan, Italy.,Psicologia Scientifica - Centro di Ricerca e Promozione Sociale, Milan, Italy
| | - Paolo Vinai
- "GNOSIS" Research and Psychotherapy Group, Mondovì, Italy
| | - Luisa Vinai
- Pôle de Psychiatrie et Psychothérapie du Centre Hospitalier du Valais Romand, Monthey, Switzerland
| | - Leonor J Romero Lauro
- Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy.,Studi Cognitivi, Cognitive Psychotherapy School and Research Center, Milan, Italy
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