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PubMed2002

Neural substrates of human facial expression of pleasant emotion induced by comic films: a PET Study.

Laughter or smile is one of the emotional expressions of pleasantness with characteristic contraction of the facial muscles, of which the neural substrate remains to be explored. This currently described study is the first to investigate the generation of human facial expression of pleasant emotion using positron emission tomography and H(2)(15)O. Regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) during laughter/smile induced by visual comics and the magnitude of laughter/smile indicated significant correlation in the bilateral supplementary motor area (SMA) and left putamen (P < 0.05, corrected), but no correlation in the primary motor area (M1). In the voluntary facial movement, significant correlation between rCBF and the magnitude of EMG was found in the face area of bilateral M1 and the SMA (P < 0.001, uncorrected). Laughter/smile, as opposed to voluntary movement, activated the visual association areas, left anterior temporal cortex, left uncus, and orbitofrontal and medial prefrontal cortices (P < 0.05, corrected), whereas voluntary facial movement generated by mimicking a laughing/smiling face activated the face area of the left M1 and bilateral SMA, compared with laughter/smile (P < 0.05, corrected). We demonstrated distinct neural substrates of emotional and volitional facial expression and defined cognitive and experiential processes of a pleasant emotion, laughter/smile.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Is there universal recognition of emotion from facial expression? A review of the cross-cultural studies.

Emotions are universally recognized from facial expressions--or so it has been claimed. To support that claim, research has been carried out in various modern cultures and in cultures relatively isolated from Western influence. A review of the methods used in that research raises questions of its ecological, convergent, and internal validity. Forced-choice response format, within-subject design, preselected photographs of posed facial expressions, and other features of method are each problematic. When they are altered, less supportive or nonsupportive results occur. When they are combined, these method factors may help to shape the results. Facial expressions and emotion labels are probably associated, but the association may vary with culture and is loose enough to be consistent with various alternative accounts, 8 of which are discussed.

Cross-Cultural Comparison↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The neuropsychology of facial identity and facial expression in children with mental retardation.

We indirectly determined how children with mental retardation analyze facial identity and facial expression, and if these analyses of identity and expression were controlled by independent cognitive processes. In a reaction time study, 20 children with mild mental retardation were required to determine if simultaneously presented photographs of pairs of faces were pictures of the same person or of different people (identity matching), or to determine if the pairs of faces showed the same expressions or different expressions (expression matching). Faces of familiar and unfamiliar people were used as stimuli. For identity matching, reaction times were faster for familiar faces than for unfamiliar faces. For expression matching, there was no difference between familiar and unfamiliar faces. These results are consistent with neuropsychological findings from the general population indicating that analyses of facial expressions proceed independently from processes involved in establishing a person's identity. Our results suggest that the basic neuropsychological mechanisms that underlie cognitive processing of facial identity and facial expressions in children with mental retardation may be similar to those of people in the general population.

Child↗
PubMed2001

Recognition of emotion in facial expressions and vocal tones in children with psychopathic tendencies.

The authors investigated the ability of children with emotional and behavioral difficulties, divided according to their Psychopathy Screening Device scores (P. J. Frick & R. D. Hare, in press), to recognize emotional facial expressions and vocal tones. The Psychopathy Screening Device indexes a behavioral syndrome with two dimensions: affective disturbance and impulsive and conduct problems. Nine children with psychopathic tendencies and 9 comparison children were presented with 2 facial expression and 2 vocal tone subtests from the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy (S. Nowicki & M. P. Duke, 1994). These subtests measure the ability to name sad, fearful, happy, and angry facial expressions and vocal affects. The children with psychopathic tendencies showed selective impairments in the recognition of both sad and fearful facial expressions and sad vocal tone. In contrast, the two groups did not differ in their recognition of happy or angry facial expressions or fearful, happy, and angry vocal tones. The results are interpreted with reference to the suggestion that the development of psychopathic tendencies may reflect early amygdala dysfunction (R. J. R. Blair, J. S. Morris, C. D. Frith, D. I. Perrett, & R. Dolan, 1999).

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Amygdalar activation associated with happy facial expressions in adolescents: a 3-T functional MRI study.

OBJECTIVE: To study the possible role of the amygdala in the recognition of happy and sad facial expressions in adolescents aged 13 to 17 years. METHOD: Twelve healthy adolescents (6 females and 6 males) underwent noninvasive 3-Tesla functional magnetic resonance imaging while viewing pictures of happy, sad, and neutral facial expressions. RESULTS: Happy faces produced significant bilateral amygdalar activation when compared with neutral faces (p <.05, corrected). Sad faces relative to neutral did not produce significant amygdalar activation. CONCLUSIONS: These results extend the role of the amygdala in adolescents to include the recognition of happy facial expressions. They demonstrate the feasibility of using happy facial expressions to noninvasively study amygdalar function in adolescents and establish a baseline against which the amygdalar response to emotional stimuli in several psychiatric conditions may be compared.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

Recognition memory for emotional facial expressions in patients with focal cerebral lesions.

A test of memory for emotional facial expressions was administered to 49 brain-damaged and 15 control subjects. On this task, patients with right-hemisphere lesions were more impaired than left-hemisphere patients; also, patients with frontal lobe lesions were more impaired than patients with posterior brain damage. Whereas trends in the data suggested that the anterior group's impaired memory for facial expressions may be dissociable from their deficient recall of facial identity, these two abilities were not dissociable in right-hemisphere patients. No lesion subgroup had selectively preserved recall of specific emotional expressions. There was no correlation between recall and production of facial expressions.

Arousal↗
PubMed1991

Recognition of emotion from facial expression via imitation? Some indirect evidence for an old theory.

There is considerable evidence now that recognition of emotion from facial expression occurs far above chance, at least for primary emotions. On the other hand, not much research is available studying the process of emotion recognition. An early theory was proposed by Lipps (1907), postulating that an 'imitation drive' accounts for this process. According to this theory, we tend to imitate a facial expression to which we are exposed, via feedback mechanisms we realize that our own imitated facial expression is associated with an emotion, and then we attribute this emotion to the person confronting us. Using Ekman & Friesen's (1976) Pictures of Facial Affect, a study employing 20 subjects was conducted. During the first part subjects had to judge the emotions expressed in the pictures of facial affect. During this task the subjects were videotaped without their knowledge. About two weeks later the same subjects watched the video-recordings of their own expressions during the judgement task and had to judge which emotions they had decoded for the respective slides two weeks previously. Results indicate that decoding of emotions from own facial expression and decoding of the respective emotions from pictures of facial affect correspond to a degree above chance. The results are discussed with respect to the possible impact of imitation on the process of emotion recognition.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

The recognition of facial expression of pain in full-term newborns by parents and health professionals.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether adults can recognize neonatal facial expression of pain. DESIGN: A cross-sectional study. SETTING: Neonatal intensive care unit, nursery, and outpatient clinic of one university hospital and one private hospital in São Paulo, Brazil. PATIENTS: Four hundred five adults divided into 2 groups: health and nonhealth professionals. INTERVENTION: The faces of 3 healthy full-term newborns who needed glucose screening were photographed at rest and during light exposure, heel rubbing, and heel puncture. A series of adults answered a questionnaire on personal and professional data and then they analyzed for 1 minute each of the 3 sets of pictures to answer the following question: "In which picture of this set do you think that the baby is feeling pain?" MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Number of correct answers for the 3 sets of photographs shown to the adults. RESULTS: Seventy-four percent of the health professionals and 86% of the nonhealth professionals indicated correctly the picture with facial expressions of pain in at least 2 of the 3 sets. Regarding which picture was picked out by the interviewee, 94% of the health professionals and 92% of the nonhealth professionals indicated the picture taken during the heel puncture in set 1. The same observation was made by 53% and 54% of the health professional and by 68% and 66% of the nonhealth professional interviewees for sets 2 and 3, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Facial expression of pain represents an effective neonatal communication tool. However, the health professional group achieved a lower level of recognition of neonatal facial expressions of pain. Factors related to the personal and professional characteristics of the adults interviewed probably contributed to this result.

Adult↗
PubMed1977

Facial expressions used by children in a conflict situation.

72 pairs of kindergarten children were each given a brief play session involving an object with which only 1 child could play at a time. Facial expressions used by children defending their possession of the object were studied. Results showed a relationship between the facial expressions a child used and both his own subsequent behavior and that of his partner. "Agressive" facial expressions were associated with persistent attempts by the expressers to maintain access to the disputed object. Percipients of aggressive expressions were relatively hesitant about making a new attempt to take the object from the expresser. 1 nonaggressive expression was also followed by percipient hesitancy. The relationship of the aggressive expressions to both primate threat displays and human facial expressions of emotion is discussed.

Child↗
PubMed2005

Facial expression of emotions in borderline personality disorder and depression.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by marked problems in interpersonal relationships and emotion regulation. The assumption of emotional hyper-reactivity in BPD is tested regarding the facial expression of emotions, an aspect highly relevant for communication processes and a central feature of emotion regulation. Facial expressions of emotions are examined in a group of 30 female inpatients with BPD, 27 women with major depression and 30 non-patient female controls. Participants were videotaped while watching two short movie sequences, inducing either positive or negative emotions. Frequency of emotional facial expressions and intensity of happiness expressions were examined, using the Emotional Facial Action Coding System (EMFACS-7, Friesen & Ekman, EMFACS-7: Emotional Facial Action Coding System, Version 7. Unpublished manual, 1984). Group differences were analyzed for the negative and the positive mood-induction procedure separately. Results indicate that BPD patients reacted similar to depressed patients with reduced facial expressiveness to both films. The highest emotional facial activity to both films and most intense happiness expressions were displayed by the non-clinical control group. Current findings contradict the assumption of a general hyper-reactivity to emotional stimuli in patients with BPD.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Differences in facial expressions of four universal emotions.

The facial action coding system (FACS) was used to examine recognition rates in 105 healthy young men and women who viewed 128 facial expressions of posed and evoked happy, sad, angry and fearful emotions in color photographs balanced for gender and ethnicity of poser. Categorical analyses determined the specificity of individual action units for each emotion. Relationships between recognition rates for different emotions and action units were evaluated using a logistic regression model. Each emotion could be identified by a group of action units, characteristic to the emotion and distinct from other emotions. Characteristic happy expressions comprised raised inner eyebrows, tightened lower eyelid, raised cheeks, upper lip raised and lip corners turned upward. Recognition of happy faces was associated with cheek raise, lid tightening and outer brow raise. Characteristic sad expressions comprised furrowed eyebrow, opened mouth with upper lip being raised, lip corners stretched and turned down, and chin pulled up. Only brow lower and chin raise were associated with sad recognition. Characteristic anger expressions comprised lowered eyebrows, eyes wide open with tightened lower lid, lips exposing teeth and stretched lip corners. Recognition of angry faces was associated with lowered eyebrows, upper lid raise and lower lip depression. Characteristic fear expressions comprised eyes wide open, furrowed and raised eyebrows and stretched mouth. Recognition of fearful faces was most highly associated with upper lip raise and nostril dilation, although both occurred infrequently, and with inner brow raise and widened eyes. Comparisons are made with previous studies that used different facial stimuli.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

Deficits in recognition of emotional facial expression are still present in alcoholics after mid- to long-term abstinence.

OBJECTIVE: Emotional facial expression (EFE) decoding skills play a key role in interpersonal relationships. Decoding errors have been described in several pathological conditions, including alcoholism. The aim of this study was to investigate whether EFE decoding skill deficits persist after abstention from alcohol of at least 2 months. METHOD: Alcoholic patients abstinent for at least 2 months (n = 25) were compared with 25 recently detoxified patients and with 25 normal controls matched for age, gender and educational level. Subjects were presented with 40 photographs of facial expressions portraying happiness, anger, sadness, disgust and fear. Each emotion was displayed with neutral, mild, moderate and strong emotional intensity. Each facial expression was judged successively on eight scales labeled happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, surprise, shame and contempt. For each scale, subjects rated the estimated intensity level. A complementary scale assessed the self-estimated difficulty in performing the task. RESULTS: Recently detoxified alcoholics were significantly less accurate than controls, making more EFE labeling errors and overestimating the intensity of the portrayed emotions. Deficits in decoding accuracy for anger and disgust were present in mid- to long-term abstinent patients; intensity overestimation was present in the former and absent in the latter. CONCLUSIONS: Deficits in decoding accuracy for anger and disgust, and to a lesser degree sadness, persist with an abstinence of 2 months and beyond. Right frontotemporal regions and cingulate could be implicated. These deficits may contribute to the social skills deficits frequently encountered in alcoholic patients.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Nonverbal "accents": cultural differences in facial expressions of emotion.

We report evidence for nonverbal "accents," subtle differences in the appearance of facial expressions of emotion across cultures. Participants viewed photographs of Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans in which posers' muscle movements were standardized to eliminate differences in expressions, cultural or otherwise. Participants guessed the nationality of posers displaying emotional expressions at above-chance levels, and with greater accuracy than they judged the nationality of the same posers displaying neutral expressions. These findings indicate that facial expressions of emotion can contain nonverbal accents that identify the expresser's nationality or culture. Cultural differences are intensified during the act of expressing emotion, rather than residing only in facial features or other static elements of appearance. This evidence suggests that extreme positions regarding the universality of emotional expressions are incomplete.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Effect of temporomandibular disorder pain duration on facial expressions and verbal report of pain.

This study investigated how specific expressive behaviors (verbal report of pain level and the frequency of emitting specific non-verbal facial expressions of pain) may change over the course of a chronic pain condition. Based on the concept of chronic pain behaviors, we hypothesized that both verbal and non-verbal behavior would increase with duration of pain. Thirty-six women with chronic temporomandibular disorder (TMD) pain (duration over 6 months) were compared with 35 recent onset cases (first episode, duration < or = 2 months). Subjects completed questionnaires assessing depression, anxiety, somatization, daily hassles and pain coping strategies. They were videotaped during a resting baseline and 2 painful conditions: experimental cold pressor pain and the clinically relevant pain of palpation of the masticatory muscles and temporomandibular joint; tapes were coded for facial expression using the Facial Action Coding System. Visual analog scale (VAS) ratings of the aversiveness and intensity of ongoing TMD pain were collected at baseline, and similar ratings of cold pressor and clinical examination pain were gathered after the painful stimulus. Recent onset and chronic cases did not differ on self-report measures of anxiety, depression, somatization or daily stress. Coping strategies were also similar, although chronic cases showed a greater tendency to catastrophize. Self-report measures of ambient facial pain, as well as the pain of clinical examination and cold pressor stimulation, revealed no significant differences between the 2 groups. In contrast, rates of pain facial expression were significantly higher for chronic cases under all conditions of the experiment, including baseline.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1998

Recognition of facial expressions of emotion by Chinese adults with mental retardation.

We compared the ability of Chinese adults with mental retardation and nonhandicapped Chinese children to recognize the six basic facial expressions of emotion. Each subject was told a story identifying an emotion, presented with an array of six photographs of basic facial expressions of emotion, and asked to point to the photograph that depicted the story's emotion. Results showed that the children were more accurate than the adults in recognizing facial expressions of emotion except happiness on which both groups achieved 100% accuracy. Surprise, fear, anger, and disgust were confused most often by both groups. Recognition proficiency was not significantly correlated with age in the children or with IQ in the adults. Our results partially replicated those reported in earlier studies with non-Chinese individuals with mental retardation and raised the possibility that there may be cultural influences on a person's ability to recognize facial expressions of emotion.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

Memory for facial expressions in social phobia.

Memory biases toward threat have been documented in several anxiety disorders, but contradictory findings have recently been reported in social phobics' recognition of facial expressions. The present study examined recognition memory in clients with social phobia, in an effort to clarify previous inconsistent results. Just before giving a speech to a live audience, social phobia clients and normal controls viewed photographs of people with reassuring and threatening facial expressions. The stimuli were later presented again alongside photographs of the same person with a different facial expression, and participants chose which face they had seen before. Individuals with social phobia were less accurate at recognizing previously seen photographs than controls, apparently due to state anxiety. In contrast, social phobics did not show a memory bias toward threatening facial expressions. Theoretical and treatment implications are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1996

Cortical systems for the recognition of emotion in facial expressions.

This study is part of an effort to map neural systems involved in the processing of emotion, and it focuses on the possible cortical components of the process of recognizing facial expressions. We hypothesized that the cortical systems most responsible for the recognition of emotional facial expressions would draw on discrete regions of right higher-order sensory cortices and that the recognition of specific emotions would depend on partially distinct system subsets of such cortical regions. We tested these hypotheses using lesion analysis in 37 subjects with focal brain damage. Subjects were asked to recognize facial expressions of six basic emotions: happiness, surprise, fear, anger, disgust, and sadness. Data were analyzed with a novel technique, based on three-dimensional reconstruction of brain images, in which anatomical description of surface lesions and task performance scores were jointly mapped onto a standard brain-space. We found that all subjects recognized happy expressions normally but that some subjects were impaired in recognizing negative emotions, especially fear and sadness. The cortical surface regions that best correlated with impaired recognition of emotion were in the right inferior parietal cortex and in the right mesial anterior infracalcarine cortex. We did not find impairments in recognizing any emotion in subjects with lesions restricted to the left hemisphere. These data provide evidence for a neural system important to processing facial expressions of some emotions, involving discrete visual and somatosensory cortical sectors in right hemisphere.

Adult↗
PubMed1996

Neural correlates of infants' visual responsiveness to facial expressions of emotion.

An extensive literature documents the infant's ability to recognize and discriminate a variety of facial expressions of emotion. However, little is known about the neural bases of this ability. To examine the neural processes that may underlie infants' responses to facial expressions, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) while 7-month-olds watched pictures of a happy face and a fearful face (Experiment 1) or an angry face and a fearful face (Experiment 2). In both experiments an early positive component, a middle-latency negative component and a later positive component were elicited. However, only when the infants saw the happy and fearful faces did the components differ for the two expressions. These results are discussed in the context of the neurobiological processes involved in preceiving facial expressions.

Brain↗