Smiling By Way of Zygomatic Electrical Stimulation: Investigating the Facial Feedback Hypothesis

While it is widely accepted that affective states precede facial expressions, the facial feedback hypothesis (FFH) proposes the inverse. The FFH postulates that facial muscle region activity (e.g., smiling or frowning) directly influences the experience of emotion. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the validity of the FFH - specifically whether smiling independently enhances positive mood.

Botox or the new face of the fight against depression - literature review

Introduction: Depression is a common psychiatric disorder leading to high burden especially for some other psychiatric comorbidity. Annually over 43 billion dollars are expended for patients with depression among them 28% are directly for depression and other costs are related to mortality and morbidity due to depression. The aim of the study: Paying attention to new options for treating depression – a disease that affects more and more people.Material and method: The research was done by the usage of the PubMed and Google Scholar articles about the topic of: botulinum toxin; depression; treatment.Description of the state of knowledge: Injecting Botox into the muscles responsible for expression of anguish or sadness may potentially decrease the patients experience of feelings. Botox reversibly blocks acetylcholine release from neuronal axons into the synapse, inhibiting neuromuscular transmission. If the facial feedback hypothesis is correct, by injecting Botox into the corrugator and procerus muscles, it will reversibly inhibit frown facial expressions and have the capability of propagating or enhancing sad and depressed feelings.Summary: The results from all randomized control trials proved that botulinum toxin A injection in the glabellar region was associated with significant improvement mood and may be a safe and effective treatment to reduce symptoms of depression.

The facial feedback hypothesis and automatic mimicry in perception of sung emotion

Facial mimicry in response to emotional and neutral singing was tested in the context of an emotion judgment task. Participants were tested in two conditions, Perception (n=16) and Imagery (n=21). Participants were presented with video clips showing a singer expressing happy, neutral and sad emotions, and were asked to identify the expressed emotions, as well as rate their intensity. Participants in the Perception group were asked to simply watch the video clips, while participants in the Imagery group were also asked to imagine imitating the song fragment after watching the model singer. Facial electromyography was used to monitor acitivity in the corrugator supercilii and zygomaticus major muscles. Results showed more corrugator muscle activity for sad than happy trials, and more zygomaticus activity for happy than sad trials. No differences were found between conditions, suggesting that mimicry is an automatic process, not requiring encouragement prompted by imagery.

The facial feedback hypothesis and automatic mimicry in perception of sung emotion

Facial mimicry in response to emotional and neutral singing was tested in the context of an emotion judgment task. Participants were tested in two conditions, Perception (n=16) and Imagery (n=21). Participants were presented with video clips showing a singer expressing happy, neutral and sad emotions, and were asked to identify the expressed emotions, as well as rate their intensity. Participants in the Perception group were asked to simply watch the video clips, while participants in the Imagery group were also asked to imagine imitating the song fragment after watching the model singer. Facial electromyography was used to monitor acitivity in the corrugator supercilii and zygomaticus major muscles. Results showed more corrugator muscle activity for sad than happy trials, and more zygomaticus activity for happy than sad trials. No differences were found between conditions, suggesting that mimicry is an automatic process, not requiring encouragement prompted by imagery.

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.

The effect of psychopathy on cooperative strategies in an iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma experiment with emotional feedback

© 2019, The Author(s). As decision-making research becomes more popular, the inclusion of personality traits has emerged as a focal point for an exhaustive analysis of human behaviour. In this study, we investigate the impact of psychopathic traits on cooperation in an iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma game with emotional facial feedback. Firstly, we observed how receiving a facial feedback after each decision affected players with different psychopathic trait scores, and how being informed about the opponent’s identity influenced cooperative behaviour. Secondly, we analysed the strategies adopted by each player, and how these choices were correlated with their psychopathic traits. Although our results showed no effect of different emotional content in the feedback on cooperation, we observed more cooperative behaviours in those players who were told their opponent was another fellow human, compared to those who were told it was a computer. Moreover, fearless dominance had a very small but consistent negative effect on overall cooperation and on the tendency to maintain cooperative behaviours. We also found that players’ personality scores affected the strategies they chose to play throughout the game. Hence, our experiment adds complexity to the body of work investigating psychopathic traits and social interactions, considering not only the environment of facial feedback but also the role of deception in experimental games.

The effect of psychopathy on cooperative strategies in an iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma experiment with emotional feedback

© 2019, The Author(s). As decision-making research becomes more popular, the inclusion of personality traits has emerged as a focal point for an exhaustive analysis of human behaviour. In this study, we investigate the impact of psychopathic traits on cooperation in an iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma game with emotional facial feedback. Firstly, we observed how receiving a facial feedback after each decision affected players with different psychopathic trait scores, and how being informed about the opponent’s identity influenced cooperative behaviour. Secondly, we analysed the strategies adopted by each player, and how these choices were correlated with their psychopathic traits. Although our results showed no effect of different emotional content in the feedback on cooperation, we observed more cooperative behaviours in those players who were told their opponent was another fellow human, compared to those who were told it was a computer. Moreover, fearless dominance had a very small but consistent negative effect on overall cooperation and on the tendency to maintain cooperative behaviours. We also found that players’ personality scores affected the strategies they chose to play throughout the game. Hence, our experiment adds complexity to the body of work investigating psychopathic traits and social interactions, considering not only the environment of facial feedback but also the role of deception in experimental games.

The effect of psychopathy on cooperative strategies in an iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma experiment with emotional feedback

© 2019, The Author(s). As decision-making research becomes more popular, the inclusion of personality traits has emerged as a focal point for an exhaustive analysis of human behaviour. In this study, we investigate the impact of psychopathic traits on cooperation in an iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma game with emotional facial feedback. Firstly, we observed how receiving a facial feedback after each decision affected players with different psychopathic trait scores, and how being informed about the opponent’s identity influenced cooperative behaviour. Secondly, we analysed the strategies adopted by each player, and how these choices were correlated with their psychopathic traits. Although our results showed no effect of different emotional content in the feedback on cooperation, we observed more cooperative behaviours in those players who were told their opponent was another fellow human, compared to those who were told it was a computer. Moreover, fearless dominance had a very small but consistent negative effect on overall cooperation and on the tendency to maintain cooperative behaviours. We also found that players’ personality scores affected the strategies they chose to play throughout the game. Hence, our experiment adds complexity to the body of work investigating psychopathic traits and social interactions, considering not only the environment of facial feedback but also the role of deception in experimental games.

Demand characteristics moderate, but do not fully account for, the effects of facial feedback on emotional experience

The facial feedback hypothesis suggests that an individual’s facial expressions can influence their emotional experience (e.g., that smiling can make one feel happier). However, a reoccurring concern is that demand characteristics drive this effect. Across three experiments (n = 250, 192, 131), university students in the United States and Kenya posed happy, angry, and neutral expressions and self-reported their emotions following a demand characteristics manipulation. To manipulate demand characteristics we either (a) told participants we hypothesized their poses would influence their emotions, (b) told participants we hypothesized their poses would not influence their emotions, or (c) did not tell participants a hypothesis. Results indicated that demand characteristics moderated the effects of facial poses on self-reported emotion. However, facial poses still influenced self-reported emotion when participants were told we hypothesized their poses would not influence emotion. These results indicate that facial feedback effects are not solely an artifact of demand characteristics.