scholarly journals Altering Facial Movements Abolishes Neural Mirroring of Facial Expressions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kayley Birch-Hurst ◽  
Magdalena Rychlowska ◽  
Michael B. Lewis ◽  
Ross E. Vanderwert
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Moving Objects ◽  
Mirror Neuron System ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Mirror Neuron ◽  
Mu Rhythm ◽  
Social Signals ◽  
Facial Mimicry ◽  
Facial Movements ◽  
The Face

AbstractPeople tend to automatically imitate others’ facial expressions of emotion. That reaction, termed “facial mimicry” has been linked to sensorimotor simulation—a process in which the observer’s brain recreates and mirrors the emotional experience of the other person, potentially enabling empathy and deep, motivated processing of social signals. However, the neural mechanisms that underlie sensorimotor simulation remain unclear. This study tests how interfering with facial mimicry by asking participants to hold a pen in their mouth influences the activity of the human mirror neuron system, indexed by the desynchronization of the EEG mu rhythm. This response arises from sensorimotor brain areas during observed and executed movements and has been linked with empathy. We recorded EEG during passive viewing of dynamic facial expressions of anger, fear, and happiness, as well as nonbiological moving objects. We examine mu desynchronization under conditions of free versus altered facial mimicry and show that desynchronization is present when adult participants can freely move but not when their facial movements are inhibited. Our findings highlight the importance of motor activity and facial expression in emotion communication. They also have important implications for behaviors that involve occupying or hiding the lower part of the face.

scholarly journals Empathic deficits in schizophrenia: The potential role of rapid facial mimicry

2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 621-629 ◽  
Author(s):  
KANDICE J. VARCIN ◽  
PHOEBE E. BAILEY ◽  
JULIE D. HENRY
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Mirror Neuron System ◽  
Mirror Neuron ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Facial Mimicry ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Cognitive Difficulties ◽  
Corrugator Supercilii

AbstractEmotional facial expressions evoke rapid, involuntary, and covert facial reactions in the perceiver that are consistent with the emotional valence of the observed expression. These responses are believed to be an important low-level mechanism contributing to the experience of empathy, which some have argued rely on a simulation mechanism subserved by the human mirror neuron system (MNS). Because schizophrenia is associated with pervasive social cognitive difficulties which have been linked to structural abnormalities in the MNS network, the aim of the present study was to provide the first assessment of how rapid facial mimicry reactions (within 1000 ms poststimulus onset) are affected in schizophrenia. Activity in thecorrugator superciliiandzygomaticus majormuscle regions was quantified using electromyography while individuals with schizophrenia (n= 25) and controls (n= 25) viewed images of happy and angry facial expressions. In contrast to controls, individuals with schizophrenia demonstrated atypical facial mimicry reactions which were not associated with any clinical features of the disorder. These data provide evidence for a low-level disruption that may be contributing to empathizing deficits in schizophrenia and are discussed in relation to neuropsychological models of empathy and schizophrenia. (JINS, 2010,16, 621–629.)

The face of future: Face expressions during future thinking

2021 ◽  
pp. 174702182199299
Author(s):  
Mohamad El Haj ◽  
Emin Altintas ◽  
Ahmed A Moustafa ◽  
Abdel Halim Boudoukha
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expression ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Future Scenarios ◽  
Future Thinking ◽  
Analysis Software ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Facial Analysis ◽  
The Face ◽  
Face Expressions

Future thinking, which is the ability to project oneself forward in time to pre-experience an event, is intimately associated with emotions. We investigated whether emotional future thinking can activate emotional facial expressions. We invited 43 participants to imagine future scenarios, cued by the words “happy,” “sad,” and “city.” Future thinking was video recorded and analysed with a facial analysis software to classify whether facial expressions (i.e., happy, sad, angry, surprised, scared, disgusted, and neutral facial expression) of participants were neutral or emotional. Analysis demonstrated higher levels of happy facial expressions during future thinking cued by the word “happy” than “sad” or “city.” In contrast, higher levels of sad facial expressions were observed during future thinking cued by the word “sad” than “happy” or “city.” Higher levels of neutral facial expressions were observed during future thinking cued by the word “city” than “happy” or “sad.” In the three conditions, the neutral facial expressions were high compared with happy and sad facial expressions. Together, emotional future thinking, at least for future scenarios cued by “happy” and “sad,” seems to trigger the corresponding facial expression. Our study provides an original physiological window into the subjective emotional experience during future thinking.

scholarly journals Facial Expression Recognition Based on Multi-Features Cooperative Deep Convolutional Network

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1428
Author(s):  
Haopeng Wu ◽  
Zhiying Lu ◽  
Jianfeng Zhang ◽  
Xin Li ◽  
Mingyue Zhao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expression ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Facial Expression Recognition ◽  
Video Data ◽  
Expression Recognition ◽  
Convolutional Network ◽  
Facial Movements ◽  
The Face ◽  
Deep Convolutional Network ◽  
Selection Of

This paper addresses the problem of Facial Expression Recognition (FER), focusing on unobvious facial movements. Traditional methods often cause overfitting problems or incomplete information due to insufficient data and manual selection of features. Instead, our proposed network, which is called the Multi-features Cooperative Deep Convolutional Network (MC-DCN), maintains focus on the overall feature of the face and the trend of key parts. The processing of video data is the first stage. The method of ensemble of regression trees (ERT) is used to obtain the overall contour of the face. Then, the attention model is used to pick up the parts of face that are more susceptible to expressions. Under the combined effect of these two methods, the image which can be called a local feature map is obtained. After that, the video data are sent to MC-DCN, containing parallel sub-networks. While the overall spatiotemporal characteristics of facial expressions are obtained through the sequence of images, the selection of keys parts can better learn the changes in facial expressions brought about by subtle facial movements. By combining local features and global features, the proposed method can acquire more information, leading to better performance. The experimental results show that MC-DCN can achieve recognition rates of 95%, 78.6% and 78.3% on the three datasets SAVEE, MMI, and edited GEMEP, respectively.

Facial expressions: What the mirror neuron system can and cannot tell us

2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 179-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christiaan van der Gaag ◽  
Ruud B. Minderaa ◽  
Christian Keysers
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Mirror Neuron System ◽  
Mirror Neuron ◽  
Neuron System

scholarly journals The face is not an empty canvas: how facial expressions interact with facial appearance

2009 ◽  
Vol 364 (1535) ◽  
pp. 3497-3504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ursula Hess ◽  
Reginald B. Adams ◽  
Robert E. Kleck
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Emotional Expressions ◽  
Facial Appearance ◽  
Social Signals ◽  
Facial Movement ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Face ◽  
The One ◽  
Signalling Systems

Faces are not simply blank canvases upon which facial expressions write their emotional messages. In fact, facial appearance and facial movement are both important social signalling systems in their own right. We here provide multiple lines of evidence for the notion that the social signals derived from facial appearance on the one hand and facial movement on the other interact in a complex manner, sometimes reinforcing and sometimes contradicting one another. Faces provide information on who a person is. Sex, age, ethnicity, personality and other characteristics that can define a person and the social group the person belongs to can all be derived from the face alone. The present article argues that faces interact with the perception of emotion expressions because this information informs a decoder's expectations regarding an expresser's probable emotional reactions. Facial appearance also interacts more directly with the interpretation of facial movement because some of the features that are used to derive personality or sex information are also features that closely resemble certain emotional expressions, thereby enhancing or diluting the perceived strength of particular expressions.

scholarly journals Gender Differences in the Mu Rhythm of the Human Mirror-Neuron System

PLoS ONE ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
pp. e2113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yawei Cheng ◽  
Po-Lei Lee ◽  
Chia-Yen Yang ◽  
Ching-Po Lin ◽  
Daisy Hung ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Mirror Neuron System ◽  
Mirror Neuron ◽  
Mu Rhythm ◽  
Neuron System

scholarly journals A proposed EEG study: the role of object affordance during action observation

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Elisabeth Hailperin-Lausch
Keyword(s):  
Mirror Neuron System ◽  
Action Observation ◽  
Mirror Neuron ◽  
Incongruent Condition ◽  
Mu Rhythm ◽  
Action Execution ◽  
Eeg Data ◽  
Object Affordance ◽  
Electroencephalogram Eeg

Over the past two decades, research on the human mirror neuron system (MNS) has flourished. According to this model, there is substantial evidence that both action execution and action observation activate the motor system. However, to date, few studies have attempted to examine the role that object affordance may have during action observation. The proposed study attempts to assess this and other issues by having participants watch videos of an actor making goal-directed reaches to a common household object. In the congruent condition, the actor makes a reach and grasps the handle of a mug. In the affordance incongruent condition, the actor makes a reach but grasps the side of the mug opposite from the handle. Electroencephalogram (EEG) will be recorded throughout participant viewing and the EEG data will be decomposed into frequency bands using a Morlet wavelet analysis. The mu rhythm (8-13 Hz) will be of particular interest. Electrode sites of interest include sites over the central parietal areas as well as frontal sites. It is hoped that the proposed study will provide insight into the role of object affordance during action observation.

scholarly journals The effects of facial attractiveness on spontaneous facial mimicry.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katlyn Peck
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Facial Attractiveness ◽  
Social Bonding ◽  
Facial Muscle ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Facial Mimicry ◽  
Facial Movements ◽  
Emotional Perception ◽  
The Relationship

When individuals are presented with emotional facial expressions they spontaneously react with brief, distinct facial movements that ‘mimic’ the presented faces. While the effects of facial mimicry on emotional perception and social bonding have been well documented, the role of facial attractiveness on the elicitation of facial mimicry is unknown. We hypothesized that facial mimicry would increase with more attractive faces. Facial movements were recorded with electromyography upon presentation of averaged and original stimuli while ratings of attractiveness and intensity were obtained. In line with existing findings, emotionally congruent responses were observed in relevant facial muscle regions. Unexpectedly, the strength of observers’ facial mimicry responses decreased with more averaged faces, despite being rated perceptually as more attractive. These findings suggest that facial attractiveness moderates the degree of facial mimicry muscle movements elicited in observers. The relationship between averageness, attractiveness and mimicry is discussed in light of this counterintuitive finding.

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