Self‐report measures,facial feedback,and personality differences (BEES) in cooperative vs. noncooperative situations: Contribution of the mimic system to the sense of empathy

The present study integrated three different measures of emotional empathic behavior in a social context: verbal self‐report measures (empathic response, emotional involvement, emotional significance, and valence), facial mimicry (activity of corrugator and zygomaticus muscles), and personal response to the Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale (BEES). Participants were presented with different interpersonal scene types (cooperation, noncooperation, conflict, indifference). Firstly, self‐rating on empathy, emotional involvement, and valence varied as a function of interpersonal context. Secondly, corrugator activity increased in response to conflictual and noncooperative situations; zygomatic activity increased in response to cooperative situations. Third, high‐ and low‐BEES subjects showed different empathic behavior: High‐empathic subjects were more responsive to empathy‐related situations than low‐empathic subjects. The convergence and divergence of these multidimensional measures was discussed.     

Dismissing-avoidant pattern of attachment and mimicry reactions at different levels of information processing

Individuals with a dismissing-avoidant pattern of attachment are assumed to repress anxiety-related signals, a disposition hypothesized to interfere with facial mimicry and emotional contagion. Further, they are assumed to have one internal working model associated with anxiety, operating out of awareness at early, automatic stages of information processing, and another positive model operating at later, cognitively controlled stages of processing. The main aim of the present investigation was to compare facial mimicry in dismissing-avoidant and non-dismissing subjects at different levels of information processing. Pictures of happy and angry faces were exposed to 61 subjects at three different exposure times (17, 56, and 2,350 ms) in order to elicit facial muscle reactions, first at automatic levels and then at a more controlled levels. Corrugator activity ("frowning muscles") represented negative emotions and zygomaticus activity ("smiling muscles") positive emotions. The dismissing-avoidant subjects scored significantly lower on emotional empathy than the non-dismissing subjects. At the automatic level the dismissing-avoidant subjects showed "normal" corrugator responses (negative emotions) upon exposure to angry faces. At the cognitively controlled level of processing (2,350 ms) a significant interaction effect was shown between Faces x Muscles x Attachment pattern. The dismissing-avoidant subjects showed no corrugator response and an increased zygomaticus response ("smiling reaction") to the angry face, whereas the non-dismissing subjects reacted with a significant mimicking reaction. The dismissing-avoidant subjects' tendency to "smiling" in response to the angry face at the controlled level (2,350 ms) may be interpreted as a repression of their earlier, automatically evoked (56 ms) negative emotional reaction.     

An electromyographic investigation of the impact of task relevance on facial mimicry

When viewing a face expressing emotion, the viewer's face mimics the same emotion. It is unknown whether such facial mimicry takes place when the viewed emotion is a task irrelevant property of the face. The present experiment addressed this question by asking participants to judge either the emotional expression or the colour of a series of happy and angry faces that were either blue or yellow. Electromyographical recordings showed that when emotion was ignored, there was a tendency for facial muscle activity to be suppressed. Nonetheless, participants’ facial expressions mimicked target expressions, with the zygomaticus cheek muscle being more active when viewing a smiling face and the corrugator brow muscle more active when viewing an angry face. These data support the automatic encoding of irrelevant emotional information, as well as suppression of emotional information by selective attention.     

Perceived unpleasantness and facial reactions to auditory stimuli

This study examined whether facial electromyographic (EMG) reactions differentiate between identical tone stimuli which subjects perceive as differently unpleasant. Subjects were repeatedly exposed to a 1000 Hz 75 dB tone stimulus while their facial EMG from the corrugator and zygomatic muscle regions were measured. Skin conductance and heart rate responses were also measured. The subjects rated the unpleasantness of the stimulus and based on these ratings they were divided into two groups, High and Low in perceived unpleasantness. As predicted the facial EMG activity reflected the perceived unpleasantness. That is, the High group but not the Low group reacted with an increased corrugator response. The autonomic data, on the other hand, did not differ between groups. The results are consistent with the proposition that the facial muscles function as a readout system for emotional reactions and that facial muscle activity is intimately related to the experiential level of the emotional response system.     

Automatic behavioural responses to valence: Evidence that facial action is facilitated by evaluative processing

Are motor schemata of facial action spontaneously activated upon the processing of evaluative information? In this case, the processing of positive evaluative information should immediately trigger the motor schema of smiling, and the processing of negative information should trigger frowning. This hypothesis was tested in two experiments in which participants were required to respond to positive and negative words by either smiling or frowning. Electromyogram (EMG) activity was recorded over the brow muscle region (corrugator supercilii) and over the cheek muscle region (zygomaticus major) in order to quantify the latency of muscular response as a dependent measure. In Experiment 1 we found that participants were faster at contracting their zygomaticus muscle (which is involved in smiling) when evaluating positive words, and faster at contracting their corrugator muscle (which is involved in frowning) when evaluating negative words. In Experiment 2, participants were required to respond with the contraction of one of the two muscles whenever a word appeared on the computer screen. Again, we found that responses were faster to congruent response valence combinations than to incongruent response valence combinations. These findings support the hypothesis that evaluative processing is directly linked to motor schemata of facial muscles.     

Habitual emotion regulation and the facial grimace

Summary.-Images of pleasant scenes usually produce increased activity over the zygomaticus major muscie, as measured by electromyography (EMG), while less activity is elicited by unpleasant images. However, increases in zygomaticus major EMG activity while viewing unpleasant images have occasionally been reported in the literature on affective facial expression (i.e., "grimacing"). To examine the possibility that individual differences in emotion regulation might be responsible for this inconsistently observed phenomenon, the habitual emotion regulation tendencies of 63 participants (32 women) were assessed and categorized according to their regulatory tendencies. Participants viewed emotionally salient images while zygomaticus major EMG activity was recorded. Participants also provided self-report ratings of their experienced emotional valence and arousal while viewing the pictures. Despite demonstrating intact affective ratings, the "grimacing" pattern of zygomaticus major activity was observed in those who were less likely to use the cognitive reappraisal strategy to regulate their emotions.     

The face of schadenfreude: Differentiation of joy and schadenfreude by electromyography

The present study investigated whether the facial expression of the social emotion schadenfreude, the pleasant emotion which arises in response to another’s misfortune, can be differentiated from the facial expression of joy. Schadenfreude was induced by videos displaying unsuccessful penalty shots of Dutch soccer players and joy by successful penalty shots of German soccer players. Thirty-two participants watched videos while the activity of four facial muscles was recorded electromyographically. Furthermore, they judged each stimulus according to valence, arousal, joy, schadenfreude and sadness. Electromyography (EMG) results revealed that schadenfreude expressions did not differ from joy with regard to involved muscles (increase of Musculus zygomaticus major and M. orbicularis oculi activity, decrease of M. corrugator supercilii activity, no activity change of M. frontalis medialis). Furthermore, facial reactions developed fast in both conditions and EMG indicated stronger reactions in the schadenfreude condition, but according to ratings participants felt more pleasure in the joy condition.     

EMG reactions of mimetic muscles after repeated presentation of pictures with positive, negative and neutral content]

Twenty male subjects (Ss) were repeatedly confronted for five seconds to pictures with positive, negative and neutral valence. During the picture presentation facial EMG-reactions of five mimic muscles (m. frontalis lateralis, m. corrugator supercilii, m. orbicularis oculi, m. zygomaticus major on the right and left side of the face) were recorded. In addition, heart rate was measured. It could be shown that during repeated presentation of pictures with positive valence the m. orbicularis oculi and the m. zygomaticus major on both sides of the face yielded enhanced average EMG-reactions as compared to the repeated presentation of pictures with negative and neutral valence. During presentation of pictures with negative valence the m. frontalis lateralis and the m. corrugator supercilii revealed enhanced EMG-reactions as compared to the repeated presentation of pictures with positive valence. Furthermore, it could be shown that during the repeated presentation of pictures with positive valence those facial muscles which mainly react during confrontation with pictures of positive valence showed a continuous decrease of EMG-activity. Facial muscles which mainly react during the presentation of pictures with negative valence do not show a continuous decrease in EMG-activity during the course of the repeated presentation of pictures with negative valence. Additionally, the EMG-activity of the m. zygomaticus major on the right and lift side of the face do not differ with respect to the mean activity and the time course during confrontation of pictures with positive valence. The m. orbicularis oculi yielded enhanced EMG-reactions during the presentation of pictures with positive valence as compared to both m. zygomaticus major muscles. The present results are discussed with respect to psychobiological theories concerning facial expression.     

Facial reactions to emotional stimuli: Automatically controlled emotional responses

Based on a model in which the facial muscles can be both automatically/involuntarily controlled and voluntarily controlled by conscious processes, we explore whether spontaneously evoked facial reactions can be evaluated in terms of criteria for what characterises an automatic process. In three experiments subjects were instructed to not react with their facial muscles, or to react as quickly as possible by wrinkling the eyebrows (frowning) or elevating the cheeks (smiling) when exposed to pictures of negative or positive emotional stimuli, while EMG activity was measured from the corrugator supercilii and zygomatic major muscle regions. Consistent with the proposition that facial reactions are automatically controlled, the results showed that the corrugator muscle reaction was facilitated to negative stimuli and the zygomatic muscle reaction was facilitated to positive stimuli. The results further showed that, despite the fact that subjects were required to not react with their facial muscles at all, they could not avoid producing a facial reaction that corresponded to the negative and positive stimuli.     

Emotional states alter force control during a feedback occluded motor task

The aim of the current experiment was to determine the extent to which pleasant and unpleasant emotional states altered the ability of men and women to control force production on a feedback occluded motor task that was not direction specific. Participants produced a precision pinch grip with visual feedback. After 5 s, feedback was occluded and replaced with a pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral image. The amplitude, variability, and structure of force production were calculated. As expected, the removal of visual feedback led to progressive force decay. More important, relative to neutral conditions, pleasant and unpleasant emotional states led to greater force production, resulting in attenuated force decay. The variability and structure of force production were not altered by affective state. In addition, men and women performed similarly across all conditions for all measures. We conclude that when sustained force production is not directed toward or away from the body, pleasant and unpleasant emotional states similarly excite the motor system. Neurobiological mechanisms are proposed to account for these findings. Implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Undifferentiated facial electromyography responses to dynamic,audio‐visual emotion displays in individuals with autism spectrum disorders

We examined facial electromyography (fEMG) activity to dynamic, audio‐visual emotional displays in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and typically developing (TD) individuals. Participants viewed clips of happy, angry, and fearful displays that contained both facial expression and affective prosody while surface electrodes measured corrugator supercilli and zygomaticus major facial muscle activity. Across measures of average and peak activity, the TD group demonstrated emotion‐selective fEMG responding, with greater relative activation of the zygomatic to happy stimuli and greater relative activation of the corrugator to fearful stimuli. In contrast, the ASD group largely showed no significant differences between zygomatic and corrugator activity across these emotions. There were no group differences in the magnitude and timing of fEMG response in the muscle congruent to the stimuli. This evidence that fEMG responses in ASD are undifferentiated with respect to the valence of the stimulus is discussed in light of potential underlying neurobiological mechanisms.     

Emotional responding following experimental manipulation of facial electromyographic activity

Increases in zygomatic electromyographic (EMG) responding have been reported during the imagination of positive affective scenes, and increases in corrugator EMG have been reported during negative affective scenes. Thirty female subjects were instructed to imagine three positive affective scenes and three negative affective scenes. During the initial imagination of each scene, the subject was told simply to imagine the situation. The subject then imagined the situation again and was instructed to enhance the muscle tension in one of two muscle groups (the zygomatic muscles for positive scenes and the corrugator muscle for negative scenes). The subject then imagined the scence a third time and was instructed to suppress the muscle tension in the same muscle group. The order of administration of enhancement and suppression trials was randomized for each scene. Subjects were given several trials to practice controlling both zygomatic and corrugator EMG. Feedback was available during the practice trials and during the enhancement and suppression trials of the experiment. Continuous monitoring of both zygomatic and corrugator EMG during the study indicated that subjects were successful in altering muscle tension in accord with the experimental instructions, and videotapes of subjects' faces indicated no overt changes in facial responding during imagination of the scenes. Subjects' ratings of emotional responding during each scene indicated that subjects experienced less enjoyment and more distress during positive affective trials in which they suppressed zygomatic EMG activity. The results are discussed in terms of the facial feedback hypothesis.     

Diminished response to pleasant stimuli by depressed women

This study examined the self-report and facial expressions of emotional response to pictorial stimuli and the incidental learning of pleasant and unpleasant words by depressed (n = 20) and nondepressed (n = 20) women. Depression was associated with reports of diminished emotional response and reduced frequency and intensity of facial expressions only to pleasant stimuli. The 2 groups did not differ in response to hedonically unpleasant stimuli, even those specifically relevant to the emotion of sadness. In a similar vein, depressed and nondepressed participants showed differences in incidental recall for only pleasant self-referential terms. There was no difference in recall of unpleasant words. These findings suggest the importance of hedonic deficits on psychological processes in clinical depression.     

Models-of-self and models-of-others as related to facial muscle reactions at different levels of cognitive control

The hypotheses of this investigation were based on attachment theory and Bowlby's conception of "internal working models", supposed to consist of one mainly emotional (model-of-self) and one more conscious cognitive structure (model-of-others), which are assumed to operate at different temporal stages of information processing. Facial muscle reactions in individuals with positive versus negative internal working models were compared at different stages of information processing. The Relationship Scale Questionnaire (RSQ) was used to categorize subjects into positive or negative model-of-self and model-of-others and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was used to measure trait anxiety (STAI-T). Pictures of happy and angry faces followed by backward masking stimuli were exposed to 61 subjects at three different exposure times (17 ms, 56 ms, 2,350 ms) in order to elicit reactions first at an automatic level and then consecutively at more cognitively elaborated levels. Facial muscle reactions were recorded by electromyography (EMG), a higher corrugator activity representing more negative emotions and a higher zygomaticus activity more positive emotions. In line with the hypothesis, subjects with a negative model-of-self scored significantly higher on STAI-T than subjects with a positive model-of-self. They also showed an overall stronger corrugator than zygomatic activity, giving further evidence of a negative tonic affective state. At the longest exposure time (2,350 ms), representing emotionally regulated responses, negative model-of-self subjects showed a significantly stronger corrugator response and reported more negative feelings than subjects with a positive model-of-self. These results supported the hypothesis that subjects with a negative model-of-self would show difficulties in self-regulation of negative affect. In line with expectations, model-of-others, assumed to represent mainly knowledge structures, did not interact with the physiological emotional measures employed, facial muscle reactions or tonic affective state.     

Fear of snakes and facial reactions: A case of rapid emotional responding

The aim of the present study was to explore how rapid emotional responses are manifested as facial electromyographic (EMG) reactions when people with explicit fear of snakes are exposed to their fear relevant stimuli. Fifty-six subjects, high or low in fear of snakes, were exposed to pictures of snakes and flowers while facial EMG activity from the corrugator supercilii and the zygomatic major muscle regions was recorded. Measures of autonomic activity and ratings of the stimuli were also collected. Pictures of snakes evoked a rapid corrugator supercilii muscle reaction which was larger in the High fear group as early as 500ms after stimulus onset. The High fear group also rated snakes as more unpleasant and displayed larger skin conductance responses (SCRs) and increased heart rate (HR) when exposed to snakes. Pictures of flowers tended to evoke increased zygomatic major muscle activity which did not differ among the groups. The present results demonstrate that the facial EMG technique is sensitive enough to detect rapidly evoked negative emotional reactions. The results support the hypothesis that people high in fear of snakes are disposed to react very rapidly with a negative emotional response to their fear relevant stimuli.     

‘Something in the way you move’: Infants are sensitive to emotions conveyed in action kinematics

Body movements, as well as faces, communicate emotions. Research in adults has shown that the perception of action kinematics has a crucial role in understanding others’ emotional experiences. Still, little is known about infants’ sensitivity to body emotional expressions, since most of the research in infancy focused on faces. While there is some first evidence that infants can recognize emotions conveyed in whole‐body postures, it is still an open question whether they can extract emotional information from action kinematics. We measured electromyographic (EMG) activity over the muscles involved in happy (zygomaticus major, ZM), angry (corrugator supercilii, CS) and fearful (frontalis, F) facial expressions, while 11‐month‐old infants observed the same action performed with either happy or angry kinematics. Results demonstrate that infants responded to angry and happy kinematics with matching facial reactions. In particular, ZM activity increased while CS activity decreased in response to happy kinematics and vice versa for angry kinematics. Our results show for the first time that infants can rely on kinematic information to pick up on the emotional content of an action. Thus, from very early in life, action kinematics represent a fundamental and powerful source of information in revealing others’ emotional state.     

The Psychophysiology of Social Action: Facial Electromyographic Responses to Stigmatized Groups Predict Antidiscrimination Action

We introduced facial electromyography as a tool for predicting advantaged group members' engagement in antidiscrimination action on behalf of a disadvantaged outgroup. Heterosexual men's corrugator supercilii (brow “frowning” muscles) activity while viewing videos of male–male and male–female couples interacting was measured. Corrugator (negative affect) response to male–male versus male–female targets, but not self-reported attitudes toward gay men, predicted number of flyers calling for action to reduce antigay violence and discrimination that participants privately took to distribute. Our discreet behavioral measure mirrored real-life collective action possibilities such as voting against laws prohibiting same-sex marriage in the privacy of one's voting booth.     

Speech anxiety and rapid emotional reactions to angry and happy facial expressions

The aim was to explore whether people high as opposed to low in speech anxiety react with a more pronounced differential facial response when exposed to angry and happy facial stimuli. High and low fear participants were selected based on their scores on a fear of public speaking questionnaire. All participants were exposed to pictures of angry and happy faces while facial electromyographic (EMG) activity from the Corrugator supercilii and the Zygomaticus major muscle regions was recorded. Skin conductance responses (SCR), heart rate (HR) and ratings were also collected. Participants high as opposed to low in speech anxiety displayed a larger differential corrugator responding, indicating a larger negative emotional reaction, between angry and happy faces. They also reacted with a larger differential zygomatic responding, indicating a larger positive emotional reaction, between happy and angry faces. Consistent with the facial reaction patterns, the high fear group rated angry faces as more unpleasant and as expressing more disgust, and further rated happy faces as more pleasant. There were no differences in SCR or HR responding between high and low speech anxiety groups. The present results support the hypothesis that people high in speech anxiety are disposed to show an exaggerated sensitivity and facial responsiveness to social stimuli.     

Electromyographic activity over facial muscle regions can differentiate the valence and intensity of affective reactions

Physiological measures have traditionally been viewed in social psychology as useful only in assessing general arousal and therefore as incapable of distinguishing between positive and negative affective states. This view is challenged in the present report. Sixteen subjects in a pilot study were exposed briefly to slides and tones that were mildly to moderately evocative of positive and negative affect. Facial electromyographic (EMG) activity differentiated both the valence and intensity of the affective reaction. Moreover, independent judges were unable to determine from viewing videotapes of the subjects' facial displays whether a positive or negative stimulus had been presented or whether a mildly or moderately intense stimulus had been presented. In the full experiment, 28 subjects briefly viewed slides of scenes that were mildly to moderately evocative of positive and negative affect. Again, EMG activity over the brow (corrugator supercilia), eye (orbicularis oculi), and cheek (zygomatic major) muscle regions differentiated the pleasantness and intensity of individuals' affective reactions to the visual stimuli even though visual inspection of the videotapes again indicated that expressions of emotion were not apparent. These results suggest that gradients of EMG activity over the muscles of facial expression can provide objective and continuous probes of affective processes that are too subtle or fleeting to evoke expressions observable under normal conditions of social interaction.     

Automaticity of the interpersonal attitude effect on facial mimicry: It takes effort to smile at neutral others but not those we like

People often mimic others more if the other is liked, a member of an ingroup, or in a cooperative relationship with the observer; we call this the interpersonal attitude effect. This study examines the degree to which this attitude effect on mimicry is an automatic or an effortful process. While under cognitive load or no load, participants observed positive, negative, and neutral others making emotional expressions. Electromyography measured corrugator supercilii (knits brow) and zygomaticus major (raises corners of mouth) activity. Under load, participants mimicked smiles of positive individuals but not neutral or negative individuals. During no-load trials, participants did not mimic negative individuals, but did mimic smiles of neutral and positive individuals. Participants enhanced their smiles in response to the smiles of liked others without effort, but smiling at neutral others’ smiles required greater cognitive resources.