Automatic facial responses to near-threshold presented facial displays of emotion: Imitation or evaluation?
Introduction
Facial expressions of emotions are highly significant social signals. Given the frequency of exposure in everyday life, it is not surprising that facial displays of emotion can be processed automatically. A fascinating finding demonstrated that congruent automatic facial responses occur even to subliminally presented facial displays of emotion (Dimberg, Thunberg, & Elmehead, 2000). In their study, participants’ electromyographic (EMG) facial responses to subliminal presentations of angry, smiling, or neutral facial displays evoked congruent muscle responses in the viewer; the zygomaticus was activated by happy, the corrugator muscle by angry faces even though these faces were not consciously perceived. In the current research we focus on the mechanisms by which these congruent facial responses to subliminally presented facial displays occur. We will compare two alternative explanations that may account for such facial responses under such limited information processing conditions.
Section snippets
Motor-mimicry
One mechanism that might account for congruent facial responses to subliminally presented facial displays of emotion is the tendency to spontaneously mimic these behaviors. The tendency to unintentionally imitate the behavior of observed others is seen as a basis for various forms of social behavior such as affiliation, rapport, emotional contagion or pro-social behavior (Preston & de Waal, 2002). Lipps (1907) was among the first to propose that empathy hinges on unintentional imitation of
Evaluative processes
Another mechanism that might account for congruent facial responses to subliminally presented facial displays of emotion is fast automatic evaluative processes. From this point of view, the subliminal angry or smiling faces in the Dimberg et al. (2000) study may have automatically activated evaluative processes which in turn may have activated corresponding muscle responses. From our point of view, this account is more plausible than the motor-mimicry assumption: First, it is consistent with
Responses to facial disgust
One way to find an answer to the question if mimicry or evaluative responses mediate the influence of subliminally presented facial expressions of emotion might be to employ a facial expression that encompasses emotion specific muscle contractions. In this respect, the facial expression of disgust may be particularly interesting because this emotional expression includes the activation of facial muscles that are unique as well as facial muscle that also occur in other negative emotions.
Overview
In order to examine the mechanisms of automatic facial responses to facial displays of emotion in more detail, we closely followed the experimental design of Dimberg et al. (2000), with five exceptions: First of all, instead of a condition with neutral facial expressions, we included a condition with facial displays of disgust. The rationale was that the contraction of the levator labii is highly specific for the expression of disgust which has been shown in previous research (de Jong et al.,
Participants and design
Participants were 52 undergraduate psychology students of the University of Würzburg, Germany. They received 5€ (approximately 6.60 US$ at that time) for their participation. A 3 × 3 design with the within-subjects factors (a) prime (happy vs. angry vs. disgust), and (b) muscle (zygomaticus major vs. corrugator supercilii vs. levator labii) was employed.
Apparatus
Facial muscle activity was assessed with bipolar Ag/AgCl well-electrodes with a contact surface diameter of 5 mm. The electrodes were placed on
Results
The data from one participant was dropped from further analysis because she had more than 50% missing data. We computed differences between the EMG responses (in microvolts) of each muscle to each prime and the baseline level before the presentation of each prime stimulus. We then analyzed the EMG responses in steps of 100 ms after prime onset. This results in a Prime (happy vs. angry vs. disgusted) × Muscle (zygomaticus vs. corrugator vs. levator) × Time (14 time windows) analysis. For each muscle,
Discussion
The objective of the current research was to find the mechanism underlying facial responses to the rapid and masked presentation of facial displays of another person's emotion. This method allowed for effectively blocking the ability to consciously differentiate the specific emotion on display. However, positive facial expressions could be detected above chance, suggesting that valence differences could be decoded under these conditions. As was pointed out above, such automatic responses to
Author note
This research was supported by the German Research Foundation (FOR 605) and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, BMBF, project 01EO1004 (SMS, Comprehensive Heart Failure Center [CHFC], University of Würzburg, Germany). Regarding author contribution we applied the “sequence-determines-credit” approach (i.e. the sequence of authors reflects the declining importance of their contribution).
References (37)
- et al.
Disgust and disgust sensitivity in spider phobia: Facial EMG in response to spider and oral disgust imagery
Journal of Anxiety Disorders
(2002) - et al.
Both of us disgusted in my insula: The common neuron basis of seeing and feeling disgust
Neuron
(2003) - et al.
Addressing the specificity of affective startle modulation: Fear versus disgust
Biological Psychology
(2002) - et al.
Here is looking at you: Emotional faces predominate in binocular rivalry
Emotion
(2007) Psychophysiology of visual masking
(1994)- et al.
On the preconscious evaluation of social stimuli
Perceptual symbol systems
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
(1999)- et al.
Motor mimicry as primitive empathy
Über die Zeit, welche nöthig ist, damit ein Gesichtsausdruck zum Bewußtsein kommt und über die Größe (Extension) der bewußten Wahrnehmung bei einem Gesichtseindrucke von gegebener Dauer
Archiv für die gesamte Physiologie
(1871)- et al.
Mimicry and the judgment of emotional facial expressions
Journal of Nonverbal Behavior
(1999)
Attitudes and cognitive response: An electrophysiological approach
Journal of Personality Social Psychology
Unconscious facial reactions to emotional facial expressions
Psychological Science
Facial reactions to emotional stimuli: Automatically controlled emotional responses
Cognition & Emotion
Motor-incompatibility of facial reactions
Journal of Psychophysiology
Facial action coding system: A technique for the measurement of facial movement
On the automatic activation of associated evaluations: An overview
Cognition & Emotion
Guidelines for human electromyographic research
Psychophysiology
The ‘shared manifold’ hypothesis: From mirror neurons to empathy
Journal of Consciousness Studies
Cited by (22)
The neuroethology of spontaneous mimicry and emotional contagion in human and non-human animals
2020, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral ReviewsCitation Excerpt :As expected with automatic responses, spontaneous facial mimicry occurs after minimal stimulus input, even upon brief presentations for expressions of joy or anger (Bornemann et al., 2012; Dimberg et al., 2000). Interestingly, both motor and affective processes play a role in such spontaneous matching (for more see Moody et al., 2007; Neumann et al., 2014). In fact, the human and non-human animal literatures converge on the importance of recognising that pure motor-based and affect-based mimicry can be two interconnected but not necessarily coinciding phenomena.
Measuring facial mimicry: Affdex vs. EMG
2024, PLoS ONEDynamics of Affective Reactivity during Mother-Daughter Interactions: The Impact of Adolescent Non-Suicidal Self-Injury
2023, Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology