summary: Researchers have found that brief electrically induced smiles can make expressionless faces appear happier. This is a new discovery that has the potential to help us understand emotional recognition and treat emotional disorders. The study used facial electrical stimulation, a technique inspired by the work of Charles Darwin, to instantly produce involuntary smiles in participants.
This novel approach is the first evidence of its kind, demonstrating that even a fleeting smile can significantly change the perception of emotion. This research, which has implications for theoretical debates and clinical applications, could pave the way for new treatments for conditions such as depression, Parkinson’s disease and autism by enhancing facial emotion recognition. .
Important facts:
- innovative experiments: This study shows for the first time that using electrical stimulation to activate smiling muscles can make neutral faces appear happier.
- historical inspiration: This technique, a modernization of the method developed by Duchenne de Boulogne and introduced by Charles Darwin, applies a controlled electric current to precisely induce a smile.
- Potential clinical applications: By improving our understanding of facial feedback in emotion perception, the findings open new avenues for exploring treatments for mood disorders and conditions that affect emotional expression, such as Parkinson’s disease and autism. Masu.
sauce: University of Essex
A new study from the University of Essex has found that people are more likely to perceive a neutral face as happier when they smile for just a moment.
A study led by Dr. Sebastian Korb from the Department of Psychology shows that even a momentary weak smile can make your face look happier.
This pioneering experiment used electrical stimulation to induce smiles and was inspired by a photograph made famous by Charles Darwin.
A painless electrical current caused the muscles to move momentarily, producing a brief, uncontrollable smile.
This is the first time that facial electrical stimulation has been shown to affect emotion recognition.
Dr Korb hopes this research will lead to the search for treatments for depression and disorders that affect expression, such as Parkinson’s disease and autism.
“The discovery that controlled activation of facial muscles, briefly and weakly, can literally create the illusion of happiness in an otherwise expressionless or even slightly sad face is a dramatic breakthrough,” he said. It is temporary.”
“This is relevant to the theoretical debate on the role of facial feedback in emotion perception and has potential for future clinical applications.”
Dr. Kolb used a modern version of a technique first developed by French physician Duchenne de Boulogne in the 19th century.
Darwin published an illustration of Duchenne’s work in his third major work on evolution, The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals.
However, the voltage was lowered in the new experiment to ensure participant safety and better control over smiling.
Using a computer, the team was able to control the onset of a smile with millisecond precision.
The Essex study, published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, involved a total of 47 people.
They were shown a digital avatar and asked to rate whether it looked happy or sad. In half of the trials, the smile muscles were activated at the onset of the face.
It turns out that just smiling weakly for 500 milliseconds is enough to induce a feeling of happiness.
Dr. Korb says the results help us understand facial feedback, and he hopes to expand his research.
He said: “We are currently conducting further studies to further investigate the phenomenon in healthy participants.
“However, in the future, this technology could be applied for people with diseases like Parkinson’s disease, where spontaneous facial mimicry is reduced and facial emotion recognition is known to be impaired.” I would like to study facial emotion recognition.
“Additionally, we have published guidelines to help other researchers safely begin using facial muscle electrical stimulation.”
About this emotional processing research news
author: ben hall
sauce: University of Essex
contact: Ben Hall – University of Essex
image: Image credited to Neuroscience News
Original research: Closed access.
“Activation of the zygomaticus muscle by facial neuromuscular electrical stimulation (fNMES) induces a sense of well-being in ambiguous facial expressions and influences the neural correlates of face processing” by Sebastian Korb et al. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience
abstract
Activation of the zygomaticus muscle by facial neuromuscular electrical stimulation (fNMES) induces a sense of well-being in ambiguous facial expressions and influences the neural correlates of face processing
The role of facial feedback in facial emotion recognition remains controversial. Part of the reason for this is the limitations of existing methods of manipulating facial muscle activation, such as spontaneous facial poses or holding a pen in the mouth. These procedures actually limit control over which muscles are (de)activated, when and to what extent.
To overcome these limitations and investigate in a more controlled manner whether facial emotion recognition is modulated by facial muscle activity, we used computer-controlled facial neuromuscular electrical stimulation (fNMES) . In a preregistered EEG experiment, ambiguous facial expressions were classified as happy or sad by 47 participants.
In half of the trials, a weak smile was elicited by fNMES delivered for 500 ms to the zygomaticus major muscle bilaterally. The likelihood of classifying ambiguous facial expressions as happy increased significantly in fNMES, as shown in the frequentist model and the Bayesian linear mixed model. Additionally, fNMES decreased the amplitudes of P1, N170, and LPP.
These findings suggest that fNMES-induced facial feedback may bias facial emotion recognition and modulate the neural correlates of face processing. We conclude that fNMES has potential as a tool to study the effects of facial feedback.
