Your Face and Moves Seem Happier When I Smile

Abstract

Abstract. In this experiment, we replicated the effect of muscle engagement on perception such that the recognition of another’s facial expressions was biased by the observer’s facial muscular activity (Blaesi & Wilson, 2010). We extended this replication to show that such a modulatory effect is also observed for the recognition of dynamic bodily expressions. Via a multilab and within-subjects approach, we investigated the emotion recognition of point-light biological walkers, along with that of morphed face stimuli, while subjects were or were not holding a pen in their teeth. Under the “pen-in-the-teeth” condition, participants tended to lower their threshold of perception of happy expressions in facial stimuli compared to the “no-pen” condition, thus replicating the experiment by Blaesi and Wilson (2010). A similar effect was found for the biological motion stimuli such that participants lowered their threshold to perceive happy walkers in the pen-in-the-teeth condition compared to the no-pen condition. This pattern of results was also found in a second experiment in which the no-pen condition was replaced by a situation in which participants held a pen in their lips (“pen-in-lips” condition). These results suggested that facial muscular activity alters the recognition of not only facial expressions but also bodily expressions.

Interpersonal physiological synchrony is associated with first person and third person subjective assessments of excitement during cooperative joint tasks

“…That is, people involved in an interaction tend to perceive their partner as more excited when their own physiological arousal is high. This finding seems to be consistent with the embodied cognition theory 36 in which people tend to use their own physical state to estimate others’ emotional experiences (e.g., 37 , 38 ). It is possible that the cognitive processes involved in the interacting partner’s emotion recognition differ from those of third-party bystanders because the former is partly based on embodied cognition while the latter is partly based on a holistic perspective that captures interpersonal phenomena.…”

Smiling, Yawning, Jaw Functional Limitations and Oral Behaviors With Respect to General Health Status in Patients With Temporomandibular Disorder—Myofascial Pain With Referral

“…Navarretta demonstrated that smiling and laughing are the most frequently mirrored behaviors (60 and 48% of the occurrence, respectively) ( 46 ), which means that one person's smile makes other people smile back ( 46 ). Marmolejo-Ramos et al concluded their study with the statement: “your face and moves seem happier when I smile” ( 48 ). Our facial expressions and moves tend to be more cheerful in response to other people's smile.…”

The Recognition of Cross-Cultural Emotional Faces Is Affected by Intensity and Ethnicity in a Japanese Sample

“…The current findings apply to real-world applications, from social interactions in general to specific patterns of cross-cultural communication [ 62 ]. The evidence that face recognition may depend on the relationship between multiple variables (e.g., gender, ethnicity, emotional valence, and intensity) could disclose the complex interplay of bottom-up (e.g., perceptive) and top-down (e.g., cognitive) processes involved the affective face processing of the observer (e.g., with peculiar perceptual abilities and reappraisal), also influenced by the surrounding environment (e.g., contextual information, social role in the group, cultural background of Western or Eastern society, membership in a collectivist versus individualist society) [ 63 , 64 ]. Peculiar perceptual and cognitive abilities in facial discrimination, influential stereotypes or bias, emotional reappraisal, and arousal of the observer may emerge from explicit (e.g., behavioral) and implicit (e.g., physiological, neurophysiological) processes [ 27 ].…”