Facial mimicry interference reduces working memory accuracy for facial emotion expressions

Facial mimicry, the tendency to imitate facial expressions of other individuals, has been shown to play a critical role in the processing of emotion expressions. At the same time, there is evidence suggesting that its role might change when the cognitive demands of the situation increase. In such situations, understanding another person is dependent on working memory. However, whether facial mimicry influences working memory representations for facial emotion expressions is not fully understood. In the present study, we experimentally interfered with facial mimicry by using established behavioral procedures, and investigated how this interference influenced working memory recall for facial emotion expressions. Healthy, young adults (N = 36) performed an emotion expression n-back paradigm with two levels of working memory load, low (1-back) and high (2-back), and three levels of mimicry interference: high, low, and no interference. Results showed that, after controlling for block order and individual differences in the perceived valence and arousal of the stimuli, the high level of mimicry interference impaired accuracy when working memory load was low (1-back) but, unexpectedly, not when load was high (2-back). Working memory load had a detrimental effect on performance in all three mimicry conditions. We conclude that facial mimicry might support working memory for emotion expressions when task load is low, but that the supporting effect possibly is reduced when the task becomes more cognitively challenging.

Application of facial neuromuscular electrical stimulation (fNMES) in psychophysiological research: Practical recommendations based on a systematic review of the literature

Facial neuromuscular electrical stimulation (fNMES), which allows for the non-invasive and physiologically sound activation of facial muscles, has great potential for investigating fundamental questions in psychology and neuroscience, such as the role of proprioceptive facial feedback in emotion induction and emotion recognition, and may serve for clinical applications, such as alleviating symptoms of depression. However, despite illustrious origins in the 19th-century work of Duchenne de Boulogne, the practical application of fNMES remains largely unknown to today's researchers in psychology. In addition, published studies vary dramatically in the stimulation parameters used, such as stimulation frequency, amplitude, duration, and electrode size, and in the way they reported them. Because fNMES parameters impact the comfort and safety of volunteers, as well as its physiological (and psychological) effects, it is of paramount importance to establish recommendations of good practice and to ensure studies can be better compared and integrated. Here, we provide an introduction to fNMES, systematically review the existing literature focusing on the stimulation parameters used, and offer recommendations on how to safely and reliably deliver fNMES and on how to report the fNMES parameters to allow better cross-study comparison. In addition, we provide a free webpage, to easily visualise fNMES parameters and verify their safety based on current density. As an example of a potential application, we focus on the use of fNMES for the investigation of the facial feedback hypothesis.

Implicit Rapport: Some Introductory Comments

"The relationship" is often cited as an essential aspect of successful psychotherapy, but what is it about the relationship that contributes to positive outcomes in treatment? This article introduces the concept of implicit rapport, which, in the parlance of social psychology, is an element of influence. Influence represents those things to which people respond without awareness of what exactly they are responding. Implicit rapport is here defined as a category of behaviors or interventions that occur within the context of clinical encounters and are designed or intended to promote a sense of feeling known, understood, valued, and safe. It is characterized as implicit because the variety of interactions referred to are not likely to be overtly or explicitly recognized by the client but, nonetheless, influences their willingness to commit to the work of psychotherapy. Clinical vignettes are presented to provide examples of how implicit rapport is conceptualized and actualized.

Empathy bodyssence: temporal dynamics of sensorimotor and physiological responses and the subjective experience in synchrony with the other's suffering

Background

Empathy is foundational in our intersubjective interactions, connecting with others across bodily, emotional, and cognitive dimensions. Previous evidence suggests that observing individuals in painful situations elicits whole bodily responses, unveiling the interdependence of the body and empathy. Although the role of the body has been extensively described, the temporal structure of bodily responses and its association with the comprehension of subjective experiences remain unclear.

Objective

Building upon the enactive approach, our study introduces and examines "bodyssence," a neologism formed from "body" and "essence." Our primary goal is to analyze the temporal dynamics, physiological, and phenomenological elements in synchrony with the experiences of sportspersons suffering physical accidents.

Methods

Using the empirical 5E approach, a refinement of Varela's neurophenomenological program, we integrated both objective third-person measurements (postural sway, electrodermal response, and heart rate) and first-person descriptions (phenomenological data). Thirty-five participants watched videos of sportspersons experiencing physical accidents during extreme sports practice, as well as neutral videos, while standing on a force platform and wearing electrodermal and heart electrodes. Subsequently, micro-phenomenological interviews were conducted.

Results

Bodyssence is composed of three distinct temporal dynamics. Forefeel marks the commencement phase, encapsulating the body's pre-reflective consciousness as participants anticipate impending physical accidents involving extreme sportspersons, manifested through minimal postural movement and high heart rate. Fullfeel, capturing the zenith of empathetic engagement, is defined by profound negative emotions, and significant bodily and kinesthetic sensations, with this stage notably featuring an increase in postural movement alongside a reduction in heart rate. In the Reliefeel phase, participants report a decrease in emotional intensity, feeling a sense of relief, as their postural control starts to reach a state of equilibrium, and heart rate remaining low. Throughout these phases, the level of electrodermal activity consistently remains high.

Conclusion

This study through an enactive approach elucidates the temporal attunement of bodily experience to the pain experienced by others. The integration of both first and third-person perspectives through an empirical 5E approach reveals the intricate nature of bodyssence, offering an innovative approach to understanding the dynamic nature of empathy.

Facial feedback manipulation influences the automatic detection of unexpected emotional body expressions

Unexpected or changing facial expressions are known to be able to engage more automatic processing than frequently occurring facial expressions, thereby inducing a neural differential wave response known as expression mismatch negativity (EMMN). Recent studies have shown that EMMN can be modulated by the observer's facial feedback (i.e., feedback from their own facial movements). A similar EMMN activity has been discovered for body expressions, but thus far only a few emotion types have been investigated. It is unknown whether the EMMNs evoked by body expressions can be influenced by facial feedback. To explore this question, we recorded EEG activity of 29 participants in the reverse oddball paradigm. Here two unexamined categories of body expressions were presented, happy and sad, placed in two paired stimulus sequences: in one the happy body was presented with a probability of 80% (standards) while the sad body was presented with a probability of 20% (deviants), and in the other the probabilities were reversed. The facial feedback was manipulated by different pen holding conditions (i.e., participants holding the pen with the teeth, lips, or nondominant hand). The nonparametric cluster permutation test revealed significant happy and sad body-related EMMN (bEMMN) activities. The happy-bEMMN were more negative than sad-bEMMN within the range of 100-150 ms. Additionally, the bEMMN amplitude of both emotions is modulated by the facial feedback conditions. These results expand the range of emotional types applicable to bEMMN and provide evidence for the validity of the facial feedback hypothesis across emotional carriers.

Behavioural and ERP evidence of a contrary effect between active and passive suppression of facial expressions

There has been disagreement regarding the relationship among the three components (subjective experience, external performance, and physiological response) of emotional responses. To investigate this issue further, this study compared the effects of active and passive suppression of facial expressions on subjective experiences and event-related potentials (ERPs) through two experiments. The two methods of expression suppression produced opposite patterns of ERPs for negative emotional stimuli: compared with the free-viewing condition, active suppression of expression decreased, while passive suppression increased the amplitude of the late positive potential (LPP) when viewing negative emotional stimuli. Further, while active suppression had no effect on participants' emotional experience, passive suppression enhanced their emotional experience. Among the three components of emotional responses, facial expressions are more closely related to the physiological response of the brain than to subjective experience, and whether the suppression was initiated by participants determines the decrease or increase in physiological response of the brain (i.e. LPP). The findings revealed the important role of individual subjective initiative in modulating the relationship among the components of emotional response, which provides new insights into effectively emotional regulation.

Mimicking Facial Expressions Facilitates Working Memory for Stimuli in Emotion-Congruent Colours

It is one thing for everyday phrases like "seeing red" to link some emotions with certain colours (e.g., anger with red), but can such links measurably bias information processing? We investigated whether emotional face information (angry/happy/neutral) held in visual working memory (VWM) enhances memory for shapes presented in a conceptually consistent colour (red or green) (Experiment 1). Although emotional information held in VWM appeared not to bias memory for coloured shapes in Experiment 1, exploratory analyses suggested that participants who physically mimicked the face stimuli were better at remembering congruently coloured shapes. Experiment 2 confirmed this finding by asking participants to hold the faces in mind while either mimicking or labelling the emotional expressions of face stimuli. Once again, those who mimicked the expressions were better at remembering shapes with emotion-congruent colours, whereas those who simply labelled them were not. Thus, emotion-colour associations appear powerful enough to guide attention, but-consistent with proposed impacts of "embodied emotion" on cognition-such effects emerged when emotion processing was facilitated through facial mimicry.

An investigation of the modulatory effects of empathic and autistic traits on emotional and facial motor responses during live social interactions

A close relationship between emotional contagion and spontaneous facial mimicry has been theoretically proposed and is supported by empirical data. Facial expressions are essential in terms of both emotional and motor synchrony. Previous studies have demonstrated that trait emotional empathy enhanced spontaneous facial mimicry, but the relationship between autistic traits and spontaneous mimicry remained controversial. Moreover, previous studies presented faces that were static or videotaped, which may lack the "liveliness" of real-life social interactions. We addressed this limitation by using an image relay system to present live performances and pre-recorded videos of smiling or frowning dynamic facial expressions to 94 healthy female participants. We assessed their subjective experiential valence and arousal ratings to infer the amplitude of emotional contagion. We measured the electromyographic activities of the zygomaticus major and corrugator supercilii muscles to estimate spontaneous facial mimicry. Individual differences measures included trait emotional empathy (empathic concern) and the autism-spectrum quotient. We did not find that live performances enhanced the modulatory effect of trait differences on emotional contagion or spontaneous facial mimicry. However, we found that a high trait empathic concern was associated with stronger emotional contagion and corrugator mimicry. We found no two-way interaction between the autism spectrum quotient and emotional condition, suggesting that autistic traits did not modulate emotional contagion or spontaneous facial mimicry. Our findings imply that previous findings regarding the relationship between emotional empathy and emotional contagion/spontaneous facial mimicry using videos and photos could be generalized to real-life interactions.

Advancing Naturalistic Affective Science with Deep Learning

People express their own emotions and perceive others' emotions via a variety of channels, including facial movements, body gestures, vocal prosody, and language. Studying these channels of affective behavior offers insight into both the experience and perception of emotion. Prior research has predominantly focused on studying individual channels of affective behavior in isolation using tightly controlled, non-naturalistic experiments. This approach limits our understanding of emotion in more naturalistic contexts where different channels of information tend to interact. Traditional methods struggle to address this limitation: manually annotating behavior is time-consuming, making it infeasible to do at large scale; manually selecting and manipulating stimuli based on hypotheses may neglect unanticipated features, potentially generating biased conclusions; and common linear modeling approaches cannot fully capture the complex, nonlinear, and interactive nature of real-life affective processes. In this methodology review, we describe how deep learning can be applied to address these challenges to advance a more naturalistic affective science. First, we describe current practices in affective research and explain why existing methods face challenges in revealing a more naturalistic understanding of emotion. Second, we introduce deep learning approaches and explain how they can be applied to tackle three main challenges: quantifying naturalistic behaviors, selecting and manipulating naturalistic stimuli, and modeling naturalistic affective processes. Finally, we describe the limitations of these deep learning methods, and how these limitations might be avoided or mitigated. By detailing the promise and the peril of deep learning, this review aims to pave the way for a more naturalistic affective science.

Moving beyond the lab: investigating empathy through the Empirical 5E approach

Empathy is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that plays a crucial role in human social interactions. Recent developments in social neuroscience have provided valuable insights into the neural underpinnings and bodily mechanisms underlying empathy. This methodology often prioritizes precision, replicability, internal validity, and confound control. However, fully understanding the complexity of empathy seems unattainable by solely relying on artificial and controlled laboratory settings, while overlooking a comprehensive view of empathy through an ecological experimental approach. In this article, we propose articulating an integrative theoretical and methodological framework based on the 5E approach (the "E"s stand for embodied, embedded, enacted, emotional, and extended perspectives of empathy), highlighting the relevance of studying empathy as an active interaction between embodied agents, embedded in a shared real-world environment. In addition, we illustrate how a novel multimodal approach including mobile brain and body imaging (MoBi) combined with phenomenological methods, and the implementation of interactive paradigms in a natural context, are adequate procedures to study empathy from the 5E approach. In doing so, we present the Empirical 5E approach (E5E) as an integrative scientific framework to bridge brain/body and phenomenological attributes in an interbody interactive setting. Progressing toward an E5E approach can be crucial to understanding empathy in accordance with the complexity of how it is experienced in the real world.

Touching and being touched: where knowing and feeling meet

Philosophers maintain that touch confers a sense of reality or grounding to perceptual experience. In touching oneself, one is simultaneously both subject and object of touch, a template for experiencing oneself as subject and object of intentions, feelings, and motivations, or intersubjectivity. Here, I explore a form of self-touch carefully documented by Winnicott in observing how the infant engages the transitional object. I compare the processes of self-loss in transitional states, including absorption in art, empathic immersion, drug-induced ego dissolution, and depersonalization. I use examples drawn from Rodin, Dante, and the Beatles; research correlating neurophysiological findings with aspects of self-representation; predictive processing-based models; Hohwy's concepts of minimal and narrative self; Clark's notion of the extended mind; and phenomenological perspectives on touch, to postulate a role for self-touch in the pre-reflective sense of mine-ness, or grounding, in transitional states.

Toward the detection of reduced emotion expression intensity: an autism sibling study

INTRODUCTION

Expressing emotions through spontaneous facial expression is an important nonverbal social communication skill. In our study, we aimed to demonstrate that both children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and the non-ASD siblings of children with ASD have deficits in this skill.

METHOD

In this study, we analyzed the six core facial emotion expressions of three distinct groups of children - those diagnosed with ASD (n = 60), non-ASD siblings (n = 60), and typically developed children (n = 60). To analyze facial expressions, we employed a computer vision program that uses machine learning algorithms to detect facial features and conducted an evidence-based task that involved assessing participants' ability to recognize facial emotion expressions.

RESULTS

Deficits in spontaneous emotion expression were shown in the children with ASD and in non-ASD siblings when compared with typically developed children. Interestingly, it was determined that these deficits were not related to the severity of the autism symptoms in the ASD group.

CONCLUSIONS

The results of the study suggest that computer-based automated analysis of facial expressions with contextual social scenes task holds potential for measuring limitations in the ability to express emotions, and they supplement the traditional clinical assessment of social phenotypical behavior deficits. This applies both to children with ASD and especially, to the non-ASD siblings of children with ASD. This study adds a novel approach to previous literature examining the emotion expression skills.

Facial mimicry and metacognitive judgments in emotion recognition are distinctly modulated by social anxiety and autistic traits

Facial mimicry as well as the accurate assessment of one's performance when judging others' emotional expressions have been suggested to inform successful emotion recognition. Differences in the integration of these two information sources might explain alterations in the perception of others' emotions in individuals with Social Anxiety Disorder and individuals on the autism spectrum. Using a non-clinical sample (N = 57), we examined the role of social anxiety and autistic traits in the link between facial mimicry, or confidence in one's performance, and emotion recognition. While participants were presented with videos of spontaneous emotional facial expressions, we measured their facial muscle activity, asked them to label the expressions and indicate their confidence in accurately labelling the expressions. Our results showed that confidence in emotion recognition was lower with higher social anxiety traits even though actual recognition was not related to social anxiety traits. Higher autistic traits, in contrast, were associated with worse recognition, and a weakened link between facial mimicry and performance. Consequently, high social anxiety traits might not affect emotion recognition itself, but the top-down evaluation of own abilities in emotion recognition contexts. High autistic traits, in contrast, may be related to lower integration of sensorimotor simulations, which promote emotion recognition.

Understanding the role of social media usage and health self-efficacy in the processing of COVID-19 rumors: A SOR perspective

Apart from the direct health and behavioral influence of the COVID-19 pandemic itself, COVID-19 rumors as an infodemic enormously amplified public anxiety and cause serious outcomes. Although factors influencing such rumors propagation have been widely studied by previous studies, the role of spatial factors (e.g., proximity to the pandemic) on individuals' response regarding COVID-19 rumors remain largely unexplored. Accordingly, this study, drawing on the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) framework, examined how proximity to the pandemic (stimulus) influences anxiety (organism), which in turn determines rumor beliefs and rumor outcomes (response). Further, the contingent role of social media usage and health self-efficacy were tested. The research model was tested using 1246 samples via an online survey during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. The results indicate that: (1)The proximity closer the public is to the pandemic, the higher their perceived anxiety; (2) Anxiety increases rumor beliefs, which is further positively associated rumor outcomes; (3) When the level of social media usage is high, the relationship between proximity to the pandemic and anxiety is strengthened; (4) When the level of health self-efficacy is high, the effect of anxiety on rumor beliefs is strengthened and the effect of rumor beliefs on rumor outcomes is also strengthened. This study provides a better understanding of the underlying mechanism of the propagation of COVID-19 rumors from a SOR perspective. Additionally, this paper is one of the first that proposes and empirically verifies the contingent role of social media usage and health self-efficacy on the SOR framework. The findings of study can assist the pandemic prevention department in to efficiently manage rumors with the aim of alleviating public anxiety and avoiding negative outcomes cause by rumors.

"When You're Smiling": How Posed Facial Expressions Affect Visual Recognition of Emotions

Facial imitation occurs automatically during the perception of an emotional facial expression, and preventing it may interfere with the accuracy of emotion recognition. In the present fMRI study, we evaluated the effect of posing a facial expression on the recognition of ambiguous facial expressions. Since facial activity is affected by various factors, such as empathic aptitudes, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) questionnaire was administered and scores were correlated with brain activity. Twenty-six healthy female subjects took part in the experiment. The volunteers were asked to pose a facial expression (happy, disgusted, neutral), then to watch an ambiguous emotional face, finally to indicate whether the emotion perceived was happiness or disgust. As stimuli, blends of happy and disgusted faces were used. Behavioral results showed that posing an emotional face increased the percentage of congruence with the perceived emotion. When participants posed a facial expression and perceived a non-congruent emotion, a neural network comprising bilateral anterior insula was activated. Brain activity was also correlated with empathic traits, particularly with empathic concern, fantasy and personal distress. Our findings support the idea that facial mimicry plays a crucial role in identifying emotions, and that empathic emotional abilities can modulate the brain circuits involved in this process.

I spy with my little eye: The detection of changes in emotional faces and the influence of facial feedback in Parkinson disease

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Parkinson disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that affects the motor system but also involves deficits in emotional processing such as facial emotion recognition. In healthy participants, it has been shown that facial mimicry, the automatic imitation of perceived facial expressions, facilitates the interpretation of the emotional states of our counterpart. In PD patients, recent studies revealed reduced facial mimicry and consequently reduced facial feedback, suggesting that this reduction might contribute to the prominent emotion recognition deficits found in PD.

METHODS

We investigated the influence of facial mimicry on facial emotion recognition. Twenty PD patients and 20 healthy controls (HCs) underwent a classical facial mimicry manipulation (holding a pen with the lips, teeth, or nondominant hand) while performing an emotional change detection task with faces.

RESULTS

As expected, emotion recognition was significantly influenced by facial mimicry manipulation in HCs, further supporting the hypothesis of facial feedback and the related theory of embodied simulation. Importantly, patients with PD, generally and independent from the facial mimicry manipulation, were impaired in their ability to detected emotion changes. Our data further show that PD patients' facial emotional recognition abilities are completely unaffected by mimicry manipulation, suggesting that PD patients cannot profit from an artificial modulation of the already impaired facial feedback.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings suggest that it is not the hypomimia and the absence of facial feedback per se, but a disruption of the facial feedback loop, that leads to the prominent emotion recognition deficit in PD patients.

A Utilização da Imitação Facial em Tarefas de Reconhecimento de Expressões Emocionais

Resumo A imitação facial é um comportamento involuntário capaz de facilitar a transmissão de informações não verbais relevantes em diferentes contextos sociais. Este estudo teve por objetivo analisar a capacidade de reconhecimento de expressões emocionais enquanto o observador tensiona a própria face ou imita a face-alvo. A hipótese utilizada foi a de que indivíduos que tensionam a própria face terão menor probabilidade de acertos na execução das tarefas de reconhecimento de expressões emocionais e aqueles que imitam a expressão terão uma maior probabilidade de acertos na execução das mesmas tarefas. A amostra foi composta por 30 participantes, divididos em dois grupos experimentais: o Grupo Imitação (GI) e o Grupo Ruído (GR), ambos com 18 participantes do sexo feminino e 12 do sexo masculino. O experimento consistiu em apresentar fotos de atores expressando facialmente uma emoção básica por 10 segundos. Neste período, os participantes deveriam, então, observar ou intervir facialmente, imitando ou tensionando a própria face (de acordo com o grupo alocado, Imitação ou Ruído). Após os 10 segundos executando a instrução (observar, imitar ou interferir), o participante deveria responder - entre as opções alegria, tristeza, nojo, raiva, surpresa e medo - a emoção correspondente à imagem. Os resultados apresentaram diferenças significativas quando comparadas as tarefas de tensionar ou imitar a face-alvo, sugerindo que a alteração da própria face do observador pode influenciar durante o desempenho de uma tarefa de reconhecimento de emoções em faces.

Are emotions contagious? A conceptual review of studies in language education

Considering the great role those affective variables play in language learning, it seems wise to hypothesize whether teacher and learner emotions are contagious in the language classroom or not. The existing literature on emotion contagion in other fields of study accepts this hypothesis and reveals significant points about the verbal and non-verbal cues for emotion contagion in class. The present paper introduces and defines the topic and goes on with summarizing the procedure of transmitting the emotion. Then, it reviews the existing research on emotion contagion in different areas and creates a link between them and the L2 studies. It draws attention to the dearth of research on emotion contagion in the second language acquisition (SLA) domain and emphasizes the need for innovative dynamic approaches to research to explore emotion contagion in the ecology of the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom. It also reviews the limited body of research in this regard in the SLA domain and shows how the significant findings can be useful for L2 educators. The findings of these studies show that more relevant studies in the future can be hoped to provide insightful remarks about how different emotions are transmitted between the teacher and students or among students in L2 classes. These studies are supposed to adopt a dynamic approach as well as a longitudinal data collection and analysis procedure. These can have implications for teacher education programs in the English language teaching (ELT) domain.

Restricting movements of lower face leaves recognition of emotional vocalizations intact but introduces a valence positivity bias

Blocking facial mimicry can disrupt recognition of emotion stimuli. Many previous studies have focused on facial expressions, and it remains unclear whether this generalises to other types of emotional expressions. Furthermore, by emphasizing categorical recognition judgments, previous studies neglected the role of mimicry in other processing stages, including dimensional (valence and arousal) evaluations. In the study presented herein, we addressed both issues by asking participants to listen to brief non-verbal vocalizations of four emotion categories (anger, disgust, fear, happiness) and neutral sounds under two conditions. One of the conditions included blocking facial mimicry by creating constant tension on the lower face muscles, in the other condition facial muscles remained relaxed. After each stimulus presentation, participants evaluated sounds' category, valence, and arousal. Although the blocking manipulation did not influence emotion recognition, it led to higher valence ratings in a non-category-specific manner, including neutral sounds. Our findings suggest that somatosensory and motor feedback play a role in the evaluation of affect vocalizations, perhaps introducing a directional bias. This distinction between stimulus recognition, stimulus categorization, and stimulus evaluation is important for understanding what cognitive and emotional processing stages involve somatosensory and motor processes.

The Current View on the Paradox of Pain in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder, which affects 1 in 44 children and may cause severe disabilities. Besides socio-communicational difficulties and repetitive behaviors, ASD also presents as atypical sensorimotor function and pain reactivity. While chronic pain is a frequent co-morbidity in autism, pain management in this population is often insufficient because of difficulties in pain evaluation, worsening their prognosis and perhaps driving higher mortality rates. Previous observations have tended to oversimplify the experience of pain in autism as being insensitive to painful stimuli. Various findings in the past 15 years have challenged and complicated this dogma. However, a relatively small number of studies investigates the physiological correlates of pain reactivity in ASD. We explore the possibility that atypical pain perception in people with ASD is mediated by alterations in pain perception, transmission, expression and modulation, and through interactions between these processes. These complex interactions may account for the great variability and sometimes contradictory findings from the studies. A growing body of evidence is challenging the idea of alterations in pain processing in ASD due to a single factor, and calls for an integrative view. We propose a model of the pain cycle that includes the interplay between the molecular and neurophysiological pathways of pain processing and it conscious appraisal that may interfere with pain reactivity and coping in autism. The role of social factors in pain-induced response is also discussed. Pain assessment in clinical care is mostly based on subjective rather than objective measures. This review clarifies the strong need for a consistent methodology, and describes innovative tools to cope with the heterogeneity of pain expression in ASD, enabling individualized assessment. Multiple measures, including self-reporting, informant reporting, clinician-assessed, and purely physiological metrics may provide more consistent results. An integrative view on the regulation of the pain cycle offers a more robust framework to characterize the experience of pain in autism.

Is There a Difference in Facial Emotion Recognition after Stroke with vs. without Central Facial Paresis?

The Facial Feedback Hypothesis (FFH) states that facial emotion recognition is based on the imitation of facial emotional expressions and the processing of physiological feedback. In the light of limited and contradictory evidence, this hypothesis is still being debated. Therefore, in the present study, emotion recognition was tested in patients with central facial paresis after stroke. Performance in facial vs. auditory emotion recognition was assessed in patients with vs. without facial paresis. The accuracy of objective facial emotion recognition was significantly lower in patients with vs. without facial paresis and also in comparison to healthy controls. Moreover, for patients with facial paresis, the accuracy measure for facial emotion recognition was significantly worse than that for auditory emotion recognition. Finally, in patients with facial paresis, the subjective judgements of their own facial emotion recognition abilities differed strongly from their objective performances. This pattern of results demonstrates a specific deficit in facial emotion recognition in central facial paresis and thus provides support for the FFH and points out certain effects of stroke.

Facial Emotion Recognition in Patients with Post-Paralytic Facial Synkinesis-A Present Competence

Facial palsy is a movement disorder with impacts on verbal and nonverbal communication. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of post-paralytic facial synkinesis on facial emotion recognition. In a prospective cross-sectional study, we compared facial emotion recognition between n = 30 patients with post-paralytic facial synkinesis (mean disease time: 1581 ± 1237 days) and n = 30 healthy controls matched in sex, age, and education level. Facial emotion recognition was measured by the Myfacetraining Program. As an intra-individual control condition, auditory emotion recognition was assessed via Montreal Affective Voices. Moreover, self-assessed emotion recognition was studied with questionnaires. In facial as well as auditory emotion recognition, on average, there was no significant difference between patients and healthy controls. The outcomes of the measurements as well as the self-reports were comparable between patients and healthy controls. In contrast to previous studies in patients with peripheral and central facial palsy, these results indicate unimpaired ability for facial emotion recognition. Only in single patients with pronounced facial asymmetry and severe facial synkinesis was an impaired facial and auditory emotion recognition detected. Further studies should compare emotion recognition in patients with pronounced facial asymmetry in acute and chronic peripheral paralysis and central and peripheral facial palsy.

How and Why Could Smiling Influence Physical Health? A Conceptual Review

Smiling has been a topic of interest to psychologists for decades, with a myriad of studies tying this behavior to well-being. Despite this, we know surprisingly little about the nature of the connections between smiling and physical health. We review the literature connecting both naturally occurring smiles and experimentally manipulated smiles to physical health and health-relevant outcomes. This work is discussed in the context of existing affect and health-relevant theoretical models that help explain the connection between smiling and physical health including the facial feedback hypothesis, the undoing hypothesis, the generalized unsafety theory of stress, and polyvagal theory. We also describe a number of plausible pathways, some new and relatively untested, through which smiling may influence physical health such as trait or state positive affect, social relationships, stress buffering, and the oculocardiac reflex. Finally, we provide a discussion of possible future directions, including the importance of cultural variation and replication. Although this field is still in its infancy, the findings from both naturally occurring smile studies and experimentally manipulated smile studies consistently suggest that smiling may have a number of health-relevant benefits including beneficially impacting our physiology during acute stress, improved stress recovery, and reduced illness over time.

Reading and reacting to faces, the effect of facial mimicry in improving facial emotion recognition in individuals with antisocial behavior and psychopathic traits

Individuals with antisocial behavior and psychopathic traits are characterized by deficits in processing facial expressions, which results in poor social adaptation and dysfunctional interpersonal relationships. However, it is not clear how individuals with varying levels of these traits differ in this emotional impairment and if these deficits are due to correctly identifying or reacting appropriately to facial expressions. The aim of the study was to examine how individuals with these traits recognized and responded to affective facial expressions by using FaceReader software (which analyses footage of faces) across different experimental conditions (imitation, suppression, and control). Imitating facial expressions was introduced to examine whether it could direct participants’ attention to the facial cues and improve participants’ performance on the facial task. A total of 643 individuals from the community were pre-screened and a sample (N = 107; M age = 21.08, SD = 1.55), differentiated on levels of antisocial personality disorder (APD) symptoms and psychopathic (PSY) traits, who were selected based on extreme scores (high/low), were invited to participate in the study. Individuals with higher levels of APD symptoms and PSY traits (APD + PSY) expressed more anger than other groups, while those in the APD-only group expressed more sadness, compared to other groups. Overall, participants were compliant in following the instructions to imitate facial expressions. However, only the group with predominantly APD symptoms and the group with combined symptoms (APD + PSY) showed improvement in their accuracy ratings specifically when instructed to imitate facial expressions, compared to when no instructions were provided. The study offers a promising direction for targeting deficits in facial emotion recognition, suggesting that the deficits found in individuals with behavioral problems (with and without psychopathic traits) can be improved by asking them to imitate facial expressions.

EXPRESS: Is Implicit Level-2 Visual perspective taking embodied? Spontaneous perceptual simulation of others' perspectives is not impaired by motor restriction

Visual perspective taking may rely on the ability to mentally rotate one's own body into that of another. Here we test whether participants' ability to make active body movements plays a causal role in visual perspective taking. We utilized our recent task that measures whether participants spontaneously represent another's visual perspective in a (quasi-)perceptual format that can drive own perceptual decision making. Participants reported whether alphanumeric characters, presented in different orientations, are shown in their normal or mirror-inverted form (e.g., "R" vs. "Я"). Between trials, we manipulated whether another person was sitting either left or right of the character and whether participants' movement was restricted with a chin rest or they could move freely. As in our previous research, participants spontaneously took the visual perspective of the other person, recognizing rotated letters more rapidly when they appeared upright to the other person in the scene, compared to when they faced away from that person, and these effects increased with age but were (weakly) negatively related to Schizotypy and not to autistic traits or social skills. Restricting participants' ability to make active body movements did not influence these effects. The results therefore rule out that active physical movement plays a causal role in computing another's visual perspective, either to create alignment between own and other's perspective or to trigger perspective-taking processes. The postural adjustments people sometimes make when making judgements from another's perspective may instead be a bodily consequence of mentally transforming one's actual to an imagined position in space.

Simulated proximity enhances perceptual and physiological responses to emotional facial expressions

Physical proximity is important in social interactions. Here, we assessed whether simulated physical proximity modulates the perceived intensity of facial emotional expressions and their associated physiological signatures during observation or imitation of these expressions. Forty-four healthy volunteers rated intensities of dynamic angry or happy facial expressions, presented at two simulated locations, proximal (0.5 m) and distant (3 m) from the participants. We tested whether simulated physical proximity affected the spontaneous (in the observation task) and voluntary (in the imitation task) physiological responses (activity of the corrugator supercilii face muscle and pupil diameter) as well as subsequent ratings of emotional intensity. Angry expressions provoked relative activation of the corrugator supercilii muscle and pupil dilation, whereas happy expressions induced a decrease in corrugator supercilii muscle activity. In proximal condition, these responses were enhanced during both observation and imitation of the facial expressions, and were accompanied by an increase in subsequent affective ratings. In addition, individual variations in condition related EMG activation during imitation of angry expressions predicted increase in subsequent emotional ratings. In sum, our results reveal novel insights about the impact of physical proximity in the perception of emotional expressions, with early proximity-induced enhancements of physiological responses followed by an increased intensity rating of facial emotional expressions.

Alexithymia and facial emotion recognition in patients with craniofacial pain and association of alexithymia with anxiety and depression: a systematic review with meta-analysis

Background

We aimed to determine the presence of alexithymia in patients with craniofacial pain (CFP) compared with asymptomatic individuals. Our secondary aims were to assess the relationship of alexithymia with anxiety and depression levels, as well as to assess the presence of facial emotion recognition deficit.

Methods

Medline, Scielo and Google Scholar were searched, with the last search performed in 8 September 2021. Standardized mean differences (SMDs) and 95% CIs were calculated for relevant outcomes and were pooled in a meta-analysis using the random effects model. In addition, meta-analyses of correlations and a meta-regression of alexithymia with depression and anxiety were performed.

Results

Regarding alexithymia, assessed through the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS), the results showed significant differences, with higher values in patients compared with asymptomatic individuals, with a large clinical effect (SMD 0.46; 95% CI [0.22–0.71]; heterogeneity-Q 66.86; p < 0.001; inconsistency (I²) = 81%). We found statistically significant correlations with a small clinical effect of alexithymia with anxiety and depression. The meta-regression showed no significant association between the TAS and anxiety or depression. With respect to facial emotion recognition, the results showed statistically significant differences, with greater recognition difficulty in patients compared with asymptomatic individuals, with a large clinical effect (SMD −1.17; 95% CI [−2.01 to −0.33]; heterogeneity-Q 2.97; p = 0.080; I² = 66%).

Conclusions

Patients with CFP showed alexithymia with moderate evidence. There was also moderate evidence indicating that these patients had significant deficits in facial emotion recognition compared with asymptomatic individuals. Furthermore, alexithymia showed statistically significant correlations with anxiety and depression levels.

Botulinum toxin type A treatment is associated with improved social and psychological behavior: A retrospective study

BACKGROUND

The human face significantly affects the individuals' quality of life, attitude, and mental state. The study of anatomy would always be on the spotlight, as the beauty of the face is desired by humans worldwide. However, age, stress, and negative emotions could lead to stimulation of the corrugator supercilii and procerus muscles in the glabellar region and, subsequently, to alterations in face's characteristics, which could be associated with isolation and avoidance of engaging in social contacts.

AIMS

Here, we aimed to examine the degree to which treatment with botulinum toxin type A (BoNT A) can affect patients' quality of life and mental state.

PATIENTS/METHODS

The data collection was performed using 11 questionnaires, which were filled by 83 individuals who underwent BoNT A treatment (sex, 95% female and 5% male; mean age, 48 years).

RESULTS

The results showed that the treatment with BoNT A improved the patients' social and psychological behavior, and their opinion regarding their appearance. This effect developed within 1 month following completion of the treatment. Moreover, the effect was higher in patients' social behavior and was better in patients aged 40-49 years compared to those aged <40 and ≥49 years.

CONCLUSIONS

Thus, BoNT A treatment could be considered as an important way to improve the social behavior and socialization of individuals by raising their psychology and self-esteem.

The Impact of a Novel Mimicry Task for Increasing Emotion Recognition in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Alexithymia: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial

Background

Impaired facial emotion expression recognition (FEER) has typically been considered a correlate of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Now, the alexithymia hypothesis is suggesting that this emotion processing problem is instead related to alexithymia, which frequently co-occurs with ASD. By combining predictive coding theories of ASD and simulation theories of emotion recognition, it is suggested that facial mimicry may improve the training of FEER in ASD and alexithymia.

Objective

This study aims to evaluate a novel mimicry task to improve FEER in adults with and without ASD and alexithymia. Additionally, this study will aim to determine the contributions of alexithymia and ASD to FEER ability and assess which of these 2 populations benefit from this training task.

Methods

Recruitment will primarily take place through an ASD community group with emphasis put on snowball recruiting. Included will be 64 consenting adults equally divided between participants without an ASD and participants with an ASD. Participants will be screened online using the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K-10; cut-off score of 22), Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ-10), and Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) followed by a clinical interview with a provisional psychologist at the Federation University psychology clinic. The clinical interview will include assessment of ability, anxiety, and depression as well as discussion of past ASD diagnosis and confirmatory administration of the Autism Mental Status Exam (AMSE). Following the clinical interview, the participant will complete the Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire (BVAQ) and then undertake a baseline assessment of FEER. Consenting participants will then be assigned using a permuted blocked randomization method into either the control task condition or the mimicry task condition. A brief measure of satisfaction of the task and a debriefing session will conclude the study.

Results

The study has Federation University Human Research Ethics Committee approval and is registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials. Participant recruitment is predicted to begin in the third quarter of 2021.

Conclusions

This study will be the first to evaluate the use of a novel facial mimicry task condition to increase FEER in adults with ASD and alexithymia. If efficacious, this task could prove useful as a cost-effective adjunct intervention that could be used at home and thus remove barriers to entry. This study will also explore the unique effectiveness of this task in people without an ASD, with an ASD, and with alexithymia.

Trial Registration

Australian New Zealand Clinical Trial Registry ACTRN12619000705189p; https://www.anzctr.org.au/Trial/Registration/TrialReview.aspx?id=377455

International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)

PRR1-10.2196/24543

Efficacy of Facial Exercises in Facial Expression Categorization in Schizophrenia

Embodied cognition theories suggest that observation of facial expression induces the same pattern of muscle activation, and that this contributes to emotion recognition. Consequently, the inability to form facial expressions would affect emotional understanding. Patients with schizophrenia show a reduced ability to express and perceive facial emotions. We assumed that a physical training specifically developed to mobilize facial muscles could improve the ability to perform facial movements, and, consequently, spontaneous mimicry and facial expression recognition. Twenty-four inpatient participants with schizophrenia were randomly assigned to the experimental and control group. At the beginning and at the end of the study, both groups were submitted to a facial expression categorization test and their data compared. The experimental group underwent a training period during which the lip muscles, and the muscles around the eyes were mobilized through the execution of transitive actions. Participants were trained three times a week for five weeks. Results showed a positive impact of the physical training in the recognition of others’ facial emotions, specifically for the responses of “fear”, the emotion for which the recognition deficit in the test is most severe. This evidence suggests that a specific deficit of the sensorimotor system may result in a specific cognitive deficit.

Ratings of Emotional Expressions in Static and Dynamic Facial Recordings Before and After Upper Face Botulinum Injections-An Observational Prospective Study

BACKGROUND

Botulinum toxin A (BTX), a neurotoxin widely used for facial aesthetics, causes dose-dependent muscle paralysis. It was hypothesized that treatment of mimic muscles with BTX might have a positive impact on emotional expression in static images (photographs), but a negative impact in dynamic recordings (videos).

OBJECTIVES

The aim of this study was to compare of emotional expression recorded in photographs and videos before and after treatment with BTX.

METHODS

Twenty healthy women (mean age, 45 years) received a dose of 19 mouse units of XEOMIN (Merz, Frankfurt am Main, Germany) into the procerus, occipitofrontalis, and orbicularis oculi muscles. Photographs and videos of the participants' faces with neutral and happy expressions were recorded before treatment and 2 weeks later. Recordings were rated by naive raters blind to the conditions and in balanced order.

RESULTS

Videos were generally rated as more pleasant, arousing, attractive, and genuine than photographs (all Ps > 0.001). This was especially the case for videos with neutral expression (P = 0.003). Independent of presentation mode and facial expression, women were rated as more attractive after BTX treatment (P = 0.03).

CONCLUSIONS

In contrast to the hypothesis, the reduced mobility had no detectable negative impact on dynamic emotional expression, but videos received more positive ratings, particularly for neutral expressions. It is thus recommended to assess emotional expression with dynamic recordings to evaluate the effects of treatment with BTX. BTX seems to improve perceived attractiveness, although the cause of this effect remains unclear.

Effects of posed smiling on memory for happy and sad facial expressions

The perception and storage of facial emotional expressions constitutes an important human skill that is essential for our daily social interactions. While previous research revealed that facial feedback can influence the perception of facial emotional expressions, it is unclear whether facial feedback also plays a role in memory processes of facial emotional expressions. In the present study we investigated the impact of facial feedback on the performance in emotional visual working memory (WM). For this purpose, 37 participants underwent a classical facial feedback manipulation (FFM) (holding a pen with the teeth—inducing a smiling expression vs. holding a pen with the non-dominant hand—as a control condition) while they performed a WM task on varying intensities of happy or sad facial expressions. Results show that the smiling manipulation improved memory performance selectively for happy faces, especially for highly ambiguous facial expressions. Furthermore, we found that in addition to an overall negative bias specifically for happy faces (i.e. happy faces are remembered as more negative than they initially were), FFM induced a positivity bias when memorizing emotional facial information (i.e. faces were remembered as being more positive than they actually were). Finally, our data demonstrate that men were affected more by FFM: during induced smiling men showed a larger positive bias than women did. These data demonstrate that facial feedback not only influences our perception but also systematically alters our memory of facial emotional expressions.

Blocking facial mimicry during binocular rivalry modulates visual awareness of faces with a neutral 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 perceptual dominance in terms of cumulative time 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.

Facial emotion detection in Vestibular Schwannoma patients with and without facial paresis

This study investigates whether there exist differences in facial emotion detection accuracy in patients suffering from Vestibular Schwannoma (VS) due to their facial paresis. Forty-four VS patients, half of them with, and half of them without a facial paresis, had to classify pictures of facial expressions as being emotional or non-emotional. The visual information of images was systematically manipulated by adding different levels of visual noise. The study had a mixed design with emotional expression (happy vs. angry) and visual noise level (10% to 80%) as repeated measures and facial paresis (present vs. absent) and degree of facial dysfunction as between subjects' factors. Emotion detection accuracy declined when visual information declined, an effect that was stronger for anger than for happy expressions. Overall, emotion detection accuracy for happy and angry faces did not differ between VS patients with or without a facial paresis, although exploratory analyses suggest that the ability to recognize emotions in angry facial expressions was slightly more impaired in patients with facial paresis. The findings are discussed in the context of the effects of facial paresis on emotion detection, and the role of facial mimicry, in particular, as an important mechanism for facial emotion processing and understanding.

Investigating automatic emotion processing in boys with autism via eye tracking and facial mimicry recordings

Difficulties in automatic emotion processing in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) might remain concealed in behavioral studies due to compensatory strategies. To gain more insight in the mechanisms underlying facial emotion recognition, we recorded eye tracking and facial mimicry data of 20 school-aged boys with ASD and 20 matched typically developing controls while performing an explicit emotion recognition task. Proportional looking times to specific face regions (eyes, nose, and mouth) and face exploration dynamics were analyzed. In addition, facial mimicry was assessed. Boys with ASD and controls were equally capable to recognize expressions and did not differ in proportional looking times, and number and duration of fixations. Yet, specific facial expressions elicited particular gaze patterns, especially within the control group. Both groups showed similar face scanning dynamics, although boys with ASD demonstrated smaller saccadic amplitudes. Regarding the facial mimicry, we found no emotion specific facial responses and no group differences in the responses to the displayed facial expressions. Our results indicate that boys with and without ASD employ similar eye gaze strategies to recognize facial expressions. Smaller saccadic amplitudes in boys with ASD might indicate a less exploratory face processing strategy. Yet, this slightly more persistent visual scanning behavior in boys with ASD does not imply less efficient emotion information processing, given the similar behavioral performance. Results on the facial mimicry data indicate similar facial responses to emotional faces in boys with and without ASD. LAY SUMMARY: We investigated (i) whether boys with and without autism apply different face exploration strategies when recognizing facial expressions and (ii) whether they mimic the displayed facial expression to a similar extent. We found that boys with and without ASD recognize facial expressions equally well, and that both groups show similar facial reactions to the displayed facial emotions. Yet, boys with ASD visually explored the faces slightly less than the boys without ASD.

Emotion recognition in nonhuman primates: How experimental research can contribute to a better understanding of underlying mechanisms

Recognising conspecifics' emotional expressions is important for nonhuman primates to navigate their physical and social environment. We address two possible mechanisms underlying emotion recognition: emotional contagion, the automatic matching of the observer's emotions to the emotional state of the observed individual, and cognitive empathy, the ability to understand the meaning and cause of emotional expressions while maintaining a distinction between own and others' emotions. We review experimental research in nonhuman primates to gain insight into the evolution of emotion recognition. Importantly, we focus on how emotional contagion and cognitive empathy can be studied experimentally. Evidence for aspects of cognitive empathy in different nonhuman primate lineages suggests that a wider range of primates than commonly assumed can infer emotional meaning from emotional expressions. Possibly, analogous rather than homologous evolution underlies emotion recognition. However, conclusions regarding its exact evolutionary course require more research in different modalities and species.

Social Symptoms of Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) is typically well recognized by its characteristic motor symptoms (e.g., bradykinesia, rigidity, and tremor). The cognitive symptoms of PD are increasingly being acknowledged by clinicians and researchers alike. However, PD also involves a host of emotional and communicative changes which can cause major disruptions to social functioning. These incude problems producing emotional facial expressions (i.e., facial masking) and emotional speech (i.e., dysarthria), as well as difficulties recognizing the verbal and nonverbal emotional cues of others. These social symptoms of PD can result in severe negative social consequences, including stigma, dehumanization, and loneliness, which might affect quality of life to an even greater extent than more well-recognized motor or cognitive symptoms. It is, therefore, imperative that researchers and clinicans become aware of these potential social symptoms and their negative effects, in order to properly investigate and manage the socioemotional aspects of PD. This narrative review provides an examination of the current research surrounding some of the most common social symptoms of PD and their related social consequences and argues that proactively and adequately addressing these issues might improve disease outcomes.

Unusual purchasing behavior during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic: The stimulus-organism-response approach

During the COVID-19 pandemic, unusual consumer behavior, such as hoarding toilet paper, was reported globally. We investigated this behavior when fears of consumer market disruptions started circulating, to capture human behavior in this unique situation. Based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework, we propose a structural model connecting exposure to online information sources (environmental stimuli) to two behavioral responses: unusual purchases and voluntary self-isolation. To test the proposed model, we collected data from 211 Finnish respondents via an online survey, and carried out analysis using PLS-SEM. We found a strong link between self-intention to self-isolate and intention to make unusual purchases, providing empirical evidence that the reported consumer behavior was directly linked to anticipated time spent in self-isolation. The results further revealed exposure to online information sources led to increased information overload and cyberchondria. Information overload was also a strong predictor of cyberchondria. Perceived severity of the situation and cyberchondria had significant impacts on people's intention to make unusual purchases and voluntarily self-isolate. Future research is needed to confirm the long-term effects of the pandemic on consumer and retail services.

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We investigate people's purchase and isolation behavior during the COVID19 pandemic.

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Information source exposure leads to information overload (IO) and cyberchondria.

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IO had a negative effect on perceived severity, whereas cyberchondria had a positive impact.

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Perceived severity (PS) positively affected intentions to self-isolate and unusual purchases.

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Purchase self-efficacy reinforces the influence of PS on unusual purchases.

A combined fMRI and EMG study of emotional contagion following partial sleep deprivation in young and older humans

Sleep deprivation is proposed to inhibit top-down-control in emotion processing, but it is unclear whether sleep deprivation affects emotional mimicry and contagion. Here, we aimed to investigate effects of partial sleep deprivation on emotional contagion and mimicry in young and older humans. Participants underwent partial sleep deprivation (3 h sleep opportunity at the end of night), crossed-over with a full sleep condition in a balanced order, followed by a functional magnetic resonance imaging and electromyography (EMG) experiment with viewing of emotional and neutral faces and ratings of emotional responses. The final sample for main analyses was n = 69 (n = 36 aged 20–30 years, n = 33 aged 65–75 years). Partial sleep deprivation caused decreased activation in fusiform gyri for angry faces and decreased ratings of happiness for all stimuli, but no significant effect on the amygdala. Older participants reported more anger compared to younger participants, but no age differences were seen in brain responses to emotional faces or sensitivity to partial sleep deprivation. No effect of the sleep manipulation was seen on EMG. In conclusion, emotional contagion, but not mimicry, was affected by sleep deprivation. Our results are consistent with the previously reported increased negativity bias after insufficient sleep.

The Stockholm sleepy brain study: effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive and emotional processing in young and old. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02000076.

Automatic facial reactions to facial, body, and vocal expressions: A stimulus-response compatibility study

When perceiving emotional facial expressions there is an automatic tendency to react with a matching facial expression. A classic explanation of this phenomenon, termed the matched motor hypothesis, highlights the importance of topographic matching, that is, the correspondence in body parts, between perceived and produced actions. More recent studies using mimicry paradigms have challenged this classic account, producing ample evidence against the matched motor hypothesis. However, research using stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) paradigms usually assumed the effect relies on topographic matching. While mimicry and SRC share some characteristics, critical differences between the paradigms suggest conclusions cannot be simply transferred from one to another. Thus, our aim in the present study was to directly test the matched motor hypothesis using SRC. Specifically, we investigated whether observing emotional body postures or hearing emotional vocalizations produces a tendency to respond with one's face, despite completely different motor actions being involved. In three SRC experiments, participants were required to either smile or frown in response to a color cue, presented concurrently with stimuli of happy and angry facial (experiment 1), body (experiment 2), or vocal (experiment 3) expressions. Reaction times were measured using facial EMG. Whether presenting facial, body, or vocal expressions, we found faster responses in compatible, compared to incompatible trials. These results demonstrate that the SRC effect of emotional expressions does not require topographic matching. Our findings question interpretations of previous research and suggest further examination of the matched motor hypothesis.

Embodied Emotion Regulation: The Influence of Implicit Emotional Compatibility on Creative Thinking

The regulatory effect of embodied emotion on one’s general emotion and the impact of the compatibility or incompatibility of the two types of emotion on creative thinking are still debatable. The purpose of this study is to investigate these issues experimentally. In Experiment 1, participants completed an explicit positive and negative emotion test [Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS)] and an implicit positive and negative emotion test [Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT)] twice on a computer after emotional video priming was used to induce negative emotions and facial expression manipulation was performed to induce embodied positive or negative emotions. It was found that maintaining the expression of a suppressed smile was helpful in regulating negative emotions (p = 0.047). Specifically, the implicit negative emotions induced by facial expression manipulation had a positive regulating effect on the implicit negative emotions induced by the video (T1, M = 47.813; to T2, M = 44.188). In Experiment 2, the positive or negative emotions of the participants were induced using emotional videos, and facial expression manipulation was used to induce their embodied positive or negative emotions. Then, the participants completed a creative test by completing alternative use tasks (AUTs) and Chinese character riddles. The AUT fluency score in the emotionally compatible group was significantly higher than that in the emotionally incompatible group (p = 0.032), but while experiencing negative emotions, the emotionally compatible group had a significantly higher originality score and insight in Chinese character riddle score than the emotionally incompatible group (p = 0.017, p = 0.004). Therefore, embodied negative emotion has a significant regulating effect on implicit negative emotion. The compatibility of emotion activated by facial expression and viewing a video contributes to creative thinking, whereas the incompatibility of emotion hinders creative thinking. The compatibility of emotion under positive emotions improved thinking fluency, whereas under negative emotions, it activated originality and insight in creative thinking. The influence of such emotional compatibility on creative thinking may be due to the regulating effect of embodied emotions on implicit emotions induced by emotional stimuli.

Computer Vision Analysis of Reduced Interpersonal Affect Coordination in Youth With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Atypical social-emotional reciprocity is a core feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) but can be difficult to operationalize. One measurable manifestation of reciprocity may be interpersonal coordination, the tendency to align the form and timing of one's behaviors (including facial affect) with others. Interpersonal affect coordination facilitates sharing and understanding of emotional cues, and there is evidence that it is reduced in ASD. However, most research has not measured this process in true social contexts, due in part to a lack of tools for measuring dynamic facial expressions over the course of an interaction. Automated facial analysis via computer vision provides an efficient, granular, objective method for measuring naturally occurring facial affect and coordination. Youth with ASD and matched typically developing youth participated in cooperative conversations with their mothers and unfamiliar adults. Time-synchronized videos were analyzed with an open-source computer vision toolkit for automated facial analysis, for the presence and intensity of facial movements associated with positive affect. Both youth and adult conversation partners exhibited less positive affect during conversations when the youth partner had ASD. Youth with ASD also engaged in less affect coordination over the course of conversations. When considered dimensionally across youth with and without ASD, affect coordination significantly predicted scores on rating scales of autism-related social atypicality, adaptive social skills, and empathy. Findings suggest that affect coordination is an important interpersonal process with implications for broader social-emotional functioning. This preliminary study introduces a promising novel method for quantifying moment-to-moment facial expression and emotional reciprocity during natural interactions. LAY SUMMARY: This study introduces a novel, automated method for measuring social-emotional reciprocity during natural conversations, which may improve assessment of this core autism diagnostic behavior. We used computerized methods to measure facial affect and the degree of affect coordination between conversation partners. Youth with autism displayed reduced affect coordination, and reduced affect coordination predicted lower scores on measures of broader social-emotional skills.

Let's Talk: Conversation as a Defining Moment for the Communication Discipline

In this essay, the author makes the case that a defining moment for the communication discipline is to encourage increased uptake of embodied conversation. The essay shares illustrative examples and reviews research on issues such as loneliness, anxiety, social comparison, empathy, compassion, social media, electronic medical records, facial mimicry and more. It then describes various strategies that the communication discipline might employ in their research and pedagogy that motivate the practice of embodied conversation. The essay concludes with an invitation to communication scholars from a wide range of focus areas and generations to join in (re)creating "conversation as cool."

Efficient recognition of facial expressions does not require motor simulation

What mechanisms underlie facial expression recognition? A popular hypothesis holds that efficient facial expression recognition cannot be achieved by visual analysis alone but additionally requires a mechanism of motor simulation — an unconscious, covert imitation of the observed facial postures and movements. Here, we first discuss why this hypothesis does not necessarily follow from extant empirical evidence. Next, we report experimental evidence against the central premise of this view: we demonstrate that individuals can achieve normotypical efficient facial expression recognition despite a congenital absence of relevant facial motor representations and, therefore, unaided by motor simulation. This underscores the need to reconsider the role of motor simulation in facial expression recognition.

Explicit and Implicit Responses of Seeing Own vs. Others' Emotions: An Electromyographic Study on the Neurophysiological and Cognitive Basis of the Self-Mirroring Technique

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.