When Age Matters: Differences in Facial Mimicry and Autonomic Responses to Peers' Emotions in Teenagers and Adults

Abstract

Age-group membership effects on explicit emotional facial expressions recognition have been widely demonstrated. In this study we investigated whether Age-group membership could also affect implicit physiological responses, as facial mimicry and autonomic regulation, to observation of emotional facial expressions. To this aim, facial Electromyography (EMG) and Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA) were recorded from teenager and adult participants during the observation of facial expressions performed by teenager and adult models. Results highlighted that teenagers exhibited greater facial EMG responses to peers' facial expressions, whereas adults showed higher RSA-responses to adult facial expressions. The different physiological modalities through which young and adults respond to peers' emotional expressions are likely to reflect two different ways to engage in social interactions with coetaneous. Findings confirmed that age is an important and powerful social feature that modulates interpersonal interactions by influencing low-level physiological responses.

Less Empathic and More Reactive: The Different Impact of Childhood Maltreatment on Facial Mimicry and Vagal Regulation

“…Furthermore, and not less importantly, the age of people expressing emotions was different between the study showing a higher corrugator response and the studies demonstrating reduced corrugator mimicry. This factor represents a crucial aspect when young people’s facial mimicry responses to others’ facial expressions are considered [ 44 ]. Bearing in mind these aspects, all these results might suggest a different impact of maltreatment on victims’ spontaneous facial mimicry depending on the nature of the relation in which they are involved and on the age of their interlocutors.…”

“…Furthermore, considering only the congruent facial mimicry of the zygomaticus muscle, even if maltreated children showed a lower amplitude of zygomaticus responses to the facial expression of positive emotion than controls, this difference was not significant. Joy is the best recognized facial expression among both maltreated and non-maltreated children [ 7 , 9 , 44 ], moreover it is the first basic emotion to be recognized [ 45 ] and the first one to be spontaneously imitated [ 46 ]. The preservation of zygomaticus facial mimicry thus demonstrates that facial mimicry response to positive facial expressions is more resistant to external environmental influences than corrugator facial mimicry to negative ones.…”

A Review of Emotion Recognition Using Physiological Signals

“…Sixth, the reliability of facial expressions cannot be guaranteed sometimes. However, when subjects are watching movie clips or stimulus fragments of people’s facial expressions, a phenomenon called ‘facial mimicry’ [ 145 ], which means a spontaneous and rapid facial EMG response in the same muscles involved in expressing the same positive or negative emotions induced by negative or positive emotional facial expressions, will appear. Research shows facial mimicry can facilitate empathy and emotional reciprocity [ 146 ].…”

Facial mimicry in its social setting

“…Studying teenagers' and adults' reactions to same-age and different-age video-morphings, Ardizzi et al ( 2014 ) found enhanced ingroup mimicry for teenagers, but not for adults. Specifically, the study found enhanced Corrugator reactions in teenagers to teenagers than to adults, while adults' reactions did not differentiate between target groups.…”