TOXIC POLITICAL DISCOURSE IN THE UNITED STATES AND UKRAINE: COGNITIVE AND DISCOURSIVE CONTRASTS

This paper represents a comparative study of cognitive and discursive contrasts in toxic political discourses in the United States and Ukraine. Toxicity is the perception of the behavior of a political figure that causes moral harm or discriminates against the addressee; it is characterized by radical trends in politicians’ and influencers’ worldviews to the right or left being the result of assigning the attribute "toxic" to representatives of opposing socio-political groups. Politicians’ utterances are toxic if they are aimed at destroying the beliefs and preferences of the opponent with harmful consequences for his/her personality or image. The study is based on videos of speeches delivered by American (Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Ann Coulter) and Ukrainian (Iryna Herashchenko, Oleh Liashko, Iryna Farion, Illia Kyva, and Oleksii Honcharenko) politicians labeled as "toxic" in the media. The paper is aimed at identifying common and distinctive means of verbal and nonverbal expression of toxicity in the speeches of American and Ukrainian politicians. The verbal markers of toxicity include the politicians’ explicit use of ideological, national, gender-related and other utterances that demean another person and discriminate against him/her. The nonverbal markers of toxicity encompass the manner of speaking (aggressive, loud, fast, screaming, hysterical, ostentatious, exaggerated) and his/her kinesics (tense movements and posture, clenched fists, impulsive gestures and head movements, exaggerated body movements and facial expressions, eyes, grimacing). The contrasting feature of the toxic speech behavior of American politicians is discriminating racist and sexist statements, which are conceptually related to the #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo movements and explicate ideological and gender-related toxic thematic zones. Toxic themes in Ukrainian politics ignore gender-related issues, but focus on the conflicting ideological national-patriotic block of concepts (“Ukraine above all”, “Ukraine is not Russia”, “colonial status”, “language issue”). The commonality of the political discourses of the United States and Ukraine is the aggressive-emotional type of toxic politicians, whose speech is characterized by confrontational tactics of accusations and insults of the opponent, as well as active involvement of impulsive gestures and head movements, exaggerated facial expressions and aggressive speech to kinesically enhance verbal toxicity.

Revisiting the Embryology of the Facial Muscles, the Superficial Musculoaponeurotic System, and the Facial Nerve

The facial muscles are responsible for nonverbal expression, and the manner by which these muscles function to express various emotions are reviewed. How one recognizes these various facial expressions and how individuals can alter their facial expression are discussed. The methodology for cataloging facial expressions is also presented. The embryology of the facial muscles; the facial ligaments; and the supporting superficial musculoaponeurotic system, which magnifies the muscle movements, is also reviewed as is the embryology of the facial nerve, which innervates these muscles. Also, a detailed MR imaging atlas of the facial muscles is presented.Learning Objective: The reader will learn how the facial muscles develop and how they are the means of human nonverbal emotional expression. The anatomy of the facial ligaments and the superficial musculoaponeurotic system are also discussed

Sauter & Russell Handbook of Emotion Theory

What is a nonverbal expression of emotion? Both the notion of expression and the notion of emotion are contentious in the literature. Everyone knows the clear cases – smiles, frowns, screams, chuckles, slumps, and so on – but the category as a whole is not well defined. Writers from different theoretical backgrounds have criticized the implicit assumptions inherent in this phrase (Ekman, 1971; Hinde, 1985; Parkinson, 2005; Zajonc, 1985). Are the referenced behaviors in fact expressing something, and is this something an emotion? Not all scientific accounts are consistent with the implication that certain nonverbal behaviors express an emotion.However, for simplicity of reference we will continue to use the phrase “nonverbal expression.” But we do so in an inverted-commas sense only, namely, to refer to those nonverbal behaviors that are commonly taken to express emotions. We acknowledge that the category is vague, and we remain agnostic on whether what is expressed is truly an emotion, or, indeed, whether “express” is what such behaviors do.We are similarly agnostic on the definition of emotion, and we do not use that word here in any technical sense. Instead, our focus in this chapter is on short-term emotion episodes, which we take to be multi-componential events of limited duration commonly taken to be an emotion. Components include but are not limited to appraisals, physiological changes, subjective experiences, nonverbal expressions, and instrumental behaviors.We now turn to summarizing how the basic emotion, appraisal, and psychological constructionist research programs account for the production and perception of nonverbal expressions. (See chapters in this volume by Shiota, Ellsworth, and Barrett, respectively, for more general discussions of each research program and for fuller sets of references.) Although each program is commonly called a theory, they are instead broad research programs: each includes a family of loosely related (indeed sometimes conflicting) theories and assumptions, an interpretation of the history of the field, various background assumptions about human nature, prescribed methods and data analytic procedures, and conclusions drawn from previous research. Furthermore, each program continues to develop. We present a prototypical version of each program, emphasizing differences among the three research programs. That said, the three research programs also share important assumptions, methods, and conclusions, although the emphasis may vary. For example, when we describe one program’s account of evolutionary origins, the reader should not infer that the other two programs reject evolution by natural selection or assume special creation. Similarly, the fact that one program emphasizes context does not mean that contextual effects are incompatible with the other programs. We present each program’s assertions as if they were established facts, but in fact they are hypotheses. In the conclusion to our chapter, we elaborate on compatibilities and convergences, but we begin by contrasting the three programs.

Using a Fully Expressive Avatar to Collaborate in Virtual Reality: Evaluation of Task Performance, Presence, and Attraction

Avatar-mediated collaboration in virtual environments is becoming more and more prevalent. However, current consumer systems are not suited to fully replicate real-world nonverbal communication. We present a novel avatar system for collaboration in virtual reality, which supports high levels of nonverbal expression by tracking behavior such as body movement, hand gesture, and facial expression. The system was built using camera tracking technology only. Therefore, in contrast to many other high-level tracking systems, it does not require users to wear additional trackers on their bodies. We compared our highly expressive system with a consumer setup extended with two body-worn trackers in a dyadic study. We investigated users’ performance, such as completion time and accuracy, as well as the presence and interpersonal attraction in a virtual charades game using an asymmetric control scheme. The results show that participants interacting with highly expressive avatars felt more social presence and attraction and exhibited better task performance than those interacting with partners represented using low-expressive avatars. Hence, we conclude that virtual reality avatar systems benefit from a higher level of nonverbal expressiveness, which can be achieved without additional body-worn trackers.

Emotions Across Cultures

What can evolutionary theories tell us about emotions, and how can research on emotions inform evolutionary theories? In this chapter, we discuss links between evolutionary theories of emotion and the cross-cultural study of emotion. We examine what predictions can be derived from evolutionary theories about cross-cultural consistency and variability. In particular, we emphasise the notion that evolved psychological mechanisms result in cultural differences instantiated as variations on common themes of human universals. We focus on two components of emotions: emotion experience and nonverbal expressions. Several case studies from emotion science are outlined to illustrate this framework empirically. In the domain of emotion experience, we highlight shame as an illustration of the idea of variations occurring across cultures around a common theme. In the domain of nonverbal expression of emotion, this idea is illustrated by the in-group advantage, that is, superior recognition of emotional expressions produced by members of one's own group. We consider both statistical learning and motivational explanations for this phenomenon in light of evolutionary perspectives. Lastly, we review three different theoretical accounts of how to conceptualise cross-culturally shared themes underlying emotions. We conclude that the cross-cultural study of consistency and variation in different emotion components offers a valuable opportunity for testing predictions derived from evolutionary psychology.

ASCII Art Classification Model by Transfer Learning and Data Augmentation

In this study, we propose an ASCII art category classification method based on transfer learning and data augmentation. ASCII art is a form of nonverbal expression that visually expresses emotions and intentions. While there are similar expressions such as emoticons and pictograms, most are either represented by a single character or are embedded in the statement as an inline expression. ASCII art is expressed in various styles, including dot art illustration and line art illustration. Basically, ASCII art can represent almost any object, and therefore the category of ASCII art is very diverse. Many existing image classification algorithms use color information; however, since most ASCII art is written in character sets, there is no color information available for categorization. We created an ASCII art category classifier using the grayscale edge image and the ASCII art image transformed from the image as a training image set. We also used VGG16, ResNet-50, Inception v3, and Xception’s pre-trained networks to fine-tune our categorization. As a result of the experiment of fine tuning by VGG16 and data augmentation, an accuracy rate of 80% or more was obtained in the “human” category.

The Virtues of Everyday Talk: The Enduring Significance of John Milton’s Theory of Expressive Liberties

The system of free expression John Milton defends in Areopagitica, a pamphlet against prior restraint in publishing, is often characterized as merely a proto-liberal, truth-based marketplace of ideas theory. But this represents a misunderstanding of Milton’s views on the freedoms of conscience, speech, and the press. The tendency in political theory, philosophy, and law to reduce the “free speech Milton” to Areopagitica, and the reduction of that essay to several soundbites, has meant sidelining both the significant exceptions to expressive liberties that Milton calls for and also the role of the social in his theory. This incomplete characterization has enabled Milton’s misuse in First Amendment discourse and jurisprudence, where he is made to support hierarchical approaches to free speech that privilege public political speech and are therefore ill-equipped to address the full range of communicative experiences. More comprehensive readings of Milton, however, reveal both certain limits to free expression, and also deep consideration for a wide range of speech acts. By reading Milton’s theory of expressive liberties in light of the justifications he provides for those freedoms—i.e., virtue-building and Truth-seeking—this essay provides a fuller account of his views. What emerges is a distinctly Miltonian, virtue-driven “political theory of everyday talk” that locates value in even the most ordinary communicative acts. This theory—embracing both verbal and nonverbal expression—not only complements existing political theories of the everyday but can also help illuminate contemporary free speech concerns, many of which stem from the libertarian approach to expressive liberties that Milton (inadvertently) helped inspire.

Autism, Emotion Recognition and the Mirror Neuron System: The Case of Music

Understanding emotions is fundamental to our ability to navigate and thrive in a complex world of human social interaction. Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are known to experience difficulties with the communication and understanding of emotion, such as the nonverbal expression of emotion and the interpretation of emotions of others from facial expressions and body language. These deficits often lead to loneliness and isolation from peers, and social withdrawal from the environment in general. In the case of music however, there is evidence to suggest that individuals with ASD do not have difficulties recognizing simple emotions. In addition, individuals with ASD have been found to show normal and even superior abilities with specific aspects of music processing, and often show strong preferences towards music. It is possible these varying abilities with different types of expressive communication may be related to a neural system referred to as the mirror neuron system (MNS), which has been proposed as deficient in individuals with autism. Music’s power to stimulate emotions and intensify our social experiences might activate the MNS in individuals with ASD, and thus provide a neural foundation for music as an effective therapeutic tool. In this review, we present literature on the ontogeny of emotion processing in typical development and in individuals with ASD, with a focus on the case of music.