Masked mimicry: The way of neo-culturalism

Currently, the world is in the grip of a new health and social crisis linked to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. In this article, we opt for a descriptive and analytical sociological analysis of behaviours and reactions resulting from the introduction of barrier measures, imposed for the prevention of COVID-19 disease, in particular wearing of a mask, while focusing our interest on the Algerian society. The reactions are multiple and inform us about the issues and negotiation strategies for the integration of this new behaviour qualified as preventive to contain the pandemic: a societal phenomenon on a global scale which has triggered a process of normalisation through the integration of neo-culturalism of the Proxemic type with a pandemic character. According to the recommendations of the study, a Proxemic neo-culturalism is in the process of spreading in a pandemic manner, to establish an interactional balance through the emergence of a new social dynamic made concrete by the adaptation of ‘honest signals’. Keywords: Facial mimicry, mask, COVID-19, protection, social distancing, neo-culturalism.

Does the Goal Matter? Emotion Recognition Tasks Can Change the Social Value of Facial Mimicry Towards Artificial Agents

In this paper, we present a study aimed at understanding whether the embodiment and humanlikeness of an artificial agent can affect people’s spontaneous and instructed mimicry of its facial expressions. The study followed a mixed experimental design and revolved around an emotion recognition task. Participants were randomly assigned to one level of humanlikeness (between-subject variable: humanlike, characterlike, or morph facial texture of the artificial agents) and observed the facial expressions displayed by three artificial agents differing in embodiment (within-subject variable: video-recorded robot, physical robot, and virtual agent) and a human (control). To study both spontaneous and instructed facial mimicry, we divided the experimental sessions into two phases. In the first phase, we asked participants to observe and recognize the emotions displayed by the agents. In the second phase, we asked them to look at the agents’ facial expressions, replicate their dynamics as closely as possible, and then identify the observed emotions. In both cases, we assessed participants’ facial expressions with an automated Action Unit (AU) intensity detector. Contrary to our hypotheses, our results disclose that the agent that was perceived as the least uncanny, and most anthropomorphic, likable, and co-present, was the one spontaneously mimicked the least. Moreover, they show that instructed facial mimicry negatively predicts spontaneous facial mimicry. Further exploratory analyses revealed that spontaneous facial mimicry appeared when participants were less certain of the emotion they recognized. Hence, we postulate that an emotion recognition goal can flip the social value of facial mimicry as it transforms a likable artificial agent into a distractor. Further work is needed to corroborate this hypothesis. Nevertheless, our findings shed light on the functioning of human-agent and human-robot mimicry in emotion recognition tasks and help us to unravel the relationship between facial mimicry, liking, and rapport.

Playing together, laughing together: Rapid facial mimicry and social sensitivity in lowland gorillas

In non-human animals, the phenomenon of Rapid Facial Mimicry (RFM) - the automatic, involuntary and rapid (< 1 sec) replication of others’ facial expressions—has been mainly investigated in the playful domain. In immature lowland gorillas Gorilla gorilla gorilla both Play Face (PF) and Full Play Face (FPF) are rapidly mimicked between the players. This makes the species suitable to test hypotheses on the factors influencing RFM during play. The observations on three captive groups of lowland gorillas (N = 27) revealed that contrary to expectations, the closeness of social bond negatively influenced the occurrence of RFM but it did not affect either RFM latency or its overlapping index. RFM was affected by the degree of symmetry of play fighting: the more balanced the session, the higher the occurrence of RFM. Players of the same sex class responded faster than players of different sex. These findings suggest that RFM may help synchronizing behaviours of playmates matching in size (same-sex) and promote symmetric playful interactions. “Laughing together” (measured by the RFM overlapping index) lasted longer when the responder perfectly mirrored the partner expression (PF→PF; FPF→FPF). If PF and FPF convey information on the different play roughness degree, through “laughing together” the players could coordinate their actions and share positive moods and playful intensity. If the perfect congruency in the motor resonance, also known as social sensitivity, can foster a possible emotional dialogue between gorillas remains to be investigated.

Altering Facial Movements Abolishes Neural Mirroring of Facial Expressions

People 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.