Neuroscience and Facial Expressions of Emotion: The Role of Amygdala–Prefrontal Interactions

Whalen, Paul J.; Raila, Hannah; Bennett, Randi; Mattek, Alison M.; Brown, Annemarie C.; Taylor, James M.; Tieghem, Michelle Van; Tanner, Alexandra; Miner, Matthew; Palmer, Amy

doi:10.1177/1754073912457231

Cited by 56 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…That the "fear" gasping face is a signal of fear and submission is pervasively assumed in clinical and applied psychology (25)(26)(27). Moreover, the gasping face has been used widely in neuroscience to test hypotheses regarding fear and the amygdala (28,29). Thus, study 2 aimed to replicate our unexpected results of study 1 on the "fear" gasping face.…”

Section: Study 2: Threat Displays In the Trobriand Islands And A Westernsupporting

confidence: 50%

The fear gasping face as a threat display in a Melanesian society

Crivelli

Russell

Jarillo

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Theory and research show that humans attribute both emotions and intentions to others on the basis of facial behavior: A gasping face can be seen as showing "fear" and intent to submit. The assumption that such interpretations are pancultural derives largely from Western societies. Here, we report two studies conducted in an indigenous, small-scale Melanesian society with considerable cultural and visual isolation from the West: the Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea. Our multidisciplinary research team spoke the vernacular and had extensive prior fieldwork experience. In study 1, Trobriand adolescents were asked to attribute emotions, social motives, or both to a set of facial displays. Trobrianders showed a mixed and variable attribution pattern, although with much lower agreement than studies of Western samples. Remarkably, the gasping face (traditionally considered a display of fear and submission in the West) was consistently matched to two unpredicted categories: anger and threat. In study 2, adolescents were asked to select the face that was threatening; Trobrianders chose the "fear" gasping face whereas Spaniards chose an "angry" scowling face. Our findings, consistent with functional approaches to animal communication and observations made on threat displays in small-scale societies, challenge the Western assumption that "fear" gasping faces uniformly express fear or signal submission across cultures.behavioral ecology | facial behavior | indigenous societies | emotion | diversity

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Section: Study 2: Threat Displays In the Trobriand Islands And A Westernsupporting

confidence: 50%

The fear gasping face as a threat display in a Melanesian society

Crivelli

Russell

Jarillo

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Expression-specific neural responses in these regions could thus reveal whether each expression is associated with a different emotional (amygdala) versus higher-order visual (pSTS) signature. Human amygdala responds reliably to all six basic facial expressions (Whalen et al, 2013). Similarly, the pSTS responds more strongly to all basic facial expressions than to neutral faces, and is sensitive to changes in expressive intensity irrespective of the actual emotion category (Harris, Young, & Andrews, 2012).…”

Section: Recognition Of Facial Expressionsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Perceptual and affective mechanisms in facial expression recognition: An integrative review

Calvo

Nummenmaa

2015

Cognition and Emotion

213

175

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Facial expressions of emotion involve a physical component of morphological changes in a face and an affective component conveying information about the expresser's internal feelings. It remains unresolved how much recognition and discrimination of expressions rely on the perception of morphological patterns or the processing of affective content. This review of research on the role of visual and emotional factors in expression recognition reached three major conclusions. First, behavioral, neurophysiological, and computational measures indicate that basic expressions are reliably recognized and discriminated from one another, albeit the effect may be inflated by the use of prototypical expression stimuli and forced-choice responses. Second, affective content along the dimensions of valence and arousal is extracted early from facial expressions, although this coarse affective representation contributes minimally to categorical recognition of specific expressions. Third, the physical configuration and visual saliency of facial features contribute significantly to expression recognition, with "emotionless" computational models being able to reproduce some of the basic phenomena demonstrated in human observers. We conclude that facial expression recognition, as it has been investigated in conventional laboratory tasks, depends to a greater extent on perceptual than affective information and mechanisms.

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“…For example, Cornwell and colleagues (2011) observed a link between individual differences in anxiety-both as personality trait and emotional state-and the reactivity of amygdala and prefrontal cortex to fearful faces. Activation in these areas and the anterior frontal cortex were found to underlie individual differences in valence attributions to expressions of positive or negative surprise (Whalen et al, 2013).…”

Section: Brain-behavior Relationships In the Perception Of Social Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are event-related potentials to dynamic facial expressions of emotion related to individual differences in the accuracy of processing facial expressions and identity?

Recio

Wilhelm²,

Sommer

et al. 2017

Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci

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Despite a wealth of knowledge about the neural mechanisms behind emotional facial expression processing, little is known about how they relate to individual differences in social cognition abilities. We studied individual differences in the event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by dynamic facial expressions. First, we assessed the latent structure of the ERPs, reflecting structural face processing in the N170, and the allocation of processing resources and reflexive attention to emotionally salient stimuli, in the early posterior negativity (EPN) and the late positive complex (LPC). Then we estimated brain-behavior relationships between the ERP factors and behavioral indicators of facial identity and emotionprocessing abilities. Structural models revealed that the participants who formed faster structural representations of neutral faces (i.e., shorter N170 latencies) performed better at face perception (r = -.51) and memory (r = -.42). The N170 amplitude was not related to individual differences in face cognition or emotion processing. The latent EPN factor correlated with emotion perception (r = .47) and memory (r = .32), and also with face perception abilities (r = .41). Interestingly, the latent factor representing the difference in EPN amplitudes between the two neutral control conditions (chewing and blinking movements) also correlated with emotion perception (r = .51), highlighting the importance of tracking facial changes in the perception of emotional facial expressions. The LPC factor for negative expressions correlated with the memory for emotional facial expressions. The links revealed between the latency and strength of activations of brain systems and individual differences in processing socioemotional information provide new insights into the brain mechanisms involved in social communication.

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Neuroscience and Facial Expressions of Emotion: The Role of Amygdala–Prefrontal Interactions

Cited by 56 publications

References 55 publications

The fear gasping face as a threat display in a Melanesian society

The fear gasping face as a threat display in a Melanesian society

Perceptual and affective mechanisms in facial expression recognition: An integrative review

Are event-related potentials to dynamic facial expressions of emotion related to individual differences in the accuracy of processing facial expressions and identity?

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