Three-year-olds’ rapid facial electromyographic responses to emotional facial expressions and body postures

Abstract

Rapid facial reactions (RFRs) to observed emotional expressions are proposed to be involved in a wide array of socioemotional skills, from empathy to social communication. Two of the most persuasive theoretical accounts propose RFRs to rely either on motor resonance mechanisms or on more complex mechanisms involving affective processes. Previous studies demonstrated that presentation of facial and bodily expressions can generate rapid changes in adult and school-age children's muscle activity. However, to date there is little to no evidence to suggest the existence of emotional RFRs from infancy to preschool age. To investigate whether RFRs are driven by motor mimicry or could also be a result of emotional appraisal processes, we recorded facial electromyographic (EMG) activation from the zygomaticus major and frontalis medialis muscles to presentation of static facial and bodily expressions of emotions (i.e., happiness, anger, fear, and neutral) in 3-year-old children. Results showed no specific EMG activation in response to bodily emotion expressions. However, observing others' happy faces led to increased activation of the zygomaticus major and decreased activation of the frontalis medialis, whereas observing others' angry faces elicited the opposite pattern of activation. This study suggests that RFRs are the result of complex mechanisms in which both affective processes and motor resonance may play an important role.

Automatic facial mimicry in response to dynamic emotional stimuli in five-month-old infants

“…Adults show facial EMG reactions to both unimodal facial expressions (visual only) [4][5][6]41,42] and emotional vocalization (auditory only) [6]. A recent study showed that even three-year-old children show the mimicking responses to unimodal facial expressions [27]. In contrast to those previous findings in adults or children, our results revealed that four-to five-month-old infants do not show mimicking responses towards emotional faces and vocalization.…”

“…The results showed increased activations of the corrugator supercilii in response to audiovisual crying, and the zygomaticus major in response to audiovisual laughing, between 500 and 1000 ms after the stimulus onset. Consistent with the findings of previous studies with adults [4,5] and children [27,[35][36][37], infants' muscles activity in response to audiovisual emotional displays emerged and peaked between rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org Proc. R. Soc.…”

Emotion in motion: Facial dynamics affect infants' neural processing of emotions

“…In accord with the idea that angry faces represent a source of potential threat, electrophysiological data collected from a wide range of age groups show that observing angry faces elicits reactions of fear (e.g., Beall, Moody, McIntosh, Hepburn, & Reed, ; Geangu, Quadrelli, Conte, Croci, & Turati, ; Moody, McIntosh, Mann, & Weisser, ). For example, Geangu and colleagues () reported that observing pictures of angry facial expressions in children triggered an increased electromyographic activation of the frontalis muscle, which is typically involved in expressing fear. Behavioral and neuroimaging studies have also shown that neural sensitivity to facial expressions of anger emerges early in development (Ravicz et al, ; Vaish et al, ).…”

“…In adults, heightened activation of the amygdala has traditionally been associated with increased reactivity to fearful expressions (e.g., Davis & Whalen, 2001), but there is also evidence for its responsiveness to angry faces (e.g., Whalen et al, 2001). In accord with the idea that angry faces represent a source of potential threat, electrophysiological data collected from a wide range of age groups show that observing angry faces elicits reactions of fear (e.g., Beall, Moody, McIntosh, Hepburn, & Reed, 2008;Geangu, Quadrelli, Conte, Croci, & Turati, 2016;Moody, McIntosh, Mann, & Weisser, 2007). For example, Geangu and colleagues (2016) reported that observing pictures of angry facial expressions in children triggered an increased electromyographic activation of the frontalis muscle, which is typically involved in expressing fear.…”

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

“…The F muscle was measured as a control muscle, to examine the possibility that infants responded with fear rather than with anger to angry kinematics. Several studies (Beall, Moody, McIntosh, Hepburn, & Reed, ; Geangu, Quadrelli, Conte, Croci, & Turati, ) showed that children sometimes respond to angry facial expressions with fearful facial reactions (increased activation of frontalis muscle) rather than with anger (increased activation of corrugator supercilii muscle). These results suggest that children evaluated an angry face as a potential threat for them (Geangu et al, ).…”