FACIAL EXPRESSION
A facial expression is one or more motion or
position of the muscies beneath the skin of the face. According to one set of
controversial theories, these movement convey the emotional state of an
individual to observers. Facial expression are a from of nonverbal communication.
They are a primary means of conveying sicail information between humans, but
they also occur in most other mammals and some other animal species. (For a
discussoin of the controversies on these claims, see Fridlund and Russell and
Fernandez Dolls.)
Humans can adopt a
facial expression voluntarily or involuntarily, and the neurasl mechanisms
responsible for controlling the
expression differ in each case. Volunarty facial expressions are often
socially conditioned and follow a cortical route in the brain, Conversely,
involuntary facial expressions are believed to be innate and follow a
subcortical route in the brain.
Facial recognition
is often an emotional experience for the brain and the amygdala is highly
involved in the recognition process.
The eyes sre often
viewed as important features of facial expressions. Aspects such as binking
rate can possibly be used to used to indicate whether a person is nervous or
whether he or she is lying. Also, eye contact is considered an important aspect
of interpersonal communication. Howeare, there are culture difference regarding
the social property of maintaining
Eye contact or not.
Beyond the accessory
nature of facial expressions in spoken communication between people, they play
a singnificant role in communication with sing language. Many phrases in sign
language include facial expressions in the display.
There is controversy
surrounding the question of whether facial expressions are worldwide and
universal display among humans. Supporters of the Universality Hypothesis claim
that many facial expressions are innate and have roots in evolutionary
ancestors. Opponents of this view question the accurany of the studies used to
test this claim and instead believe that facial expressions are conditioned and
that people view and understands facial expressions in large part from they
social situtions around them. Moreover, facial expressions have a strong
connection with personal psychology, Some psychologicals have the to discern
hidden meaning from oersons facial expression.
One experiment
investigated the influence of gaze direction amd facial expression on face
memory Participants were shown a set unfamiliar faces with either happy or
angry facial expressions, which were either gazing straight ahead or had their
gaze averted to one to one side. Memory for faces that were initially shown
with angry expressions was found to be power when these faces had averted as
opposed to direct gaze, whereas memory for individuals shown with happy faces
was unaffected by gaze direction. It is suggested that memory for another
individuals face partly depends on an evaluation of the behavioral of the
behavioural intention of that individual.
Creation
Facial expressions
are vital to social communication between humans. They are caused by the
movement of musckes that connect to the skin and fascia in the face. These
muscles move the skin, creating lines and folds and causing the movement of
facial features, such as the mouth and eyebrows. These muscles develop from the
second pharyngeal arch in the embyo. The temporalis, masster, and internal and
external pterygoid muscles, which are mainly used for chewing, have a monor
effect on expressions as well. These
muscles develop from the frist pharyngeal arch.
Neuronal
pathways
There are two brain
pathways associated with facial expression; the first is voluntary expression.
Voluntary expression travels from the primary motor cortex through the
pyramidal tract, specifically projections. The cortex is associated with
display rules in emotion, which are social precepts that influence and modify
expressions. Cortically related expressions are made consciously.
The second type of
expression is emotional. These expressions originate from the extrapyramidal
motor system, which involves subcortical nuclei.For this reason, genuine
emoyions are not associated with the cortex and are often displeyed
unconsciously. This is demostrated in infants before the age of two; they
display distress, disgust , interest, anger, contempt, surprise, and fear.
Infant's displays of these emotions, proving that they are subconscious rather
than learned. Other subcortical facial expressions include the "knit
brown" during concentration' raised eyebrown when listening attentivaly,
and short "punctuation" expressions to add emphasis during
concentraction, raised eyebrows when listening attentively, and short "puntuation"
expressions to add emphasis during speech. People can be unaware that they are
producing these expressions.
Neural
mechanisms in face perception
The amygdala plays
an important role in facial recognition. Functional imaging studies have found
that when shown picture of faces, there is a large increase in the amygdala.
The amygdala receives visual information from the subcortical pathways. The amygdala
may also have a significant role in the recognition of fearand negative
emotions. It is belived that the emotion disdust is recognized through
activated of the insula and basal ganglia. The recinigaton of emotin may also
utillize the occupitotemporal neocortex, orbitofrontal cortex and right
frontoparient cortices.
Gender
and facial cues
More than anythigng
though, what shapes a child's cognitive ability to detect facial expression is
being exposed to it from the time of birth. The
more an infant is exposed to different faces and expressions, The more
able they to recognize these emotions and then mimic them for themselves.
Infants are exposed to array of emotional expression from birth, and evidence
indicate that they imitate some gacial expressions and gestures (e.g., tongue
protrusion ) as early as the first few days of life. In additon, gender
affected the tendency to express, perceive, remember , and forget specific
emotions. For instance, angry male faces and angry female faces. Research has
shown participants were able to recognize the facial expression of fear significantly better on a
male face than on a female face. Females also recognized fear generally better
than males.
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