Facial reactions to fear-relevant and fear-irrelevant stimuli

doi:10.1016/0301-0511(86)90079-7

Biological Psychology

Volume 23, Issue 2, October 1986, Pages 153-161

https://doi.org/10.1016/0301-0511(86)90079-7 Get rights and content

Abstract

Earlier research has shown that subjects exposed to different facial expressions react spontaneously with different facial electromyographic (EMG) response patterns. In the present study subjects were exposed to fear-relevant (snakes/spiders) and fear-irrelevant (flowers/mushrooms) stimuli, while facial EMG activity, skin conductance responses (SCRs) and heart rate (HR) were measured. The stimuli evoked different response patterns. Fear-relevant stimuli elicited increased corrugator muscle activity, whereas fear-irrelevant stimuli evoked increased zygomatic muscle activity. Fear-relevant stimuli also evoked HR deceleration and larger SCR magnitudes. The present data are consistent with the theory that the face constitutes an emotional ‘readout/output-system’.

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Optimism bias describes people’s tendency to overestimate their likelihood of experiencing positive events and underestimate their likelihood of experiencing negative events in the future. The present chapter provides the necessary theoretical background to understand the various facets of optimism bias (section “Introduction”) and depicts multiple motivational and cognitive underpinnings of the bias (section “Major theories in the field”). Following a short primer on the methods used to investigate optimism bias (section “Methods used to investigate the optimism bias”), the empirical evidence is laid out from structural and functional neuroimaging studies (section “Brain regions involved in the emergence and maintenance of the bias”) and psychophysiology studies (section “Somatovisceral responses related to optimism bias”). Differences in optimism bias in clinical populations with respect to the healthy mind are also described (section “Similarities and differences between healthy and clinical populations”). The chapter concludes with the challenges faced within the field (section “Limitations”) and the areas that future research can explore (section “Future directions”).
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The negative movie, taken from a horror film, induced fear and distress. A series of previous studies reported consistent corrugator activations in response to fear stimuli (Codispoti et al., 2008; Dimberg, 1986; Magnée, Stekelenburg, Kemner, & de Gelder, 2007). Fear was chosen over sadness, since it is more prone to evoke phasic emotional events and was shown to elicit higher corrugator activation as compared to sadness in a previous study employing movies (Kreibig et al., 2007).
Emotional experiences are complex, multi-component processes that unfold over time. Accordingly, it is crucial to understand the temporal dynamics of these constituent components. Here we studied the dynamics of one of the core emotional systems, i.e. facial muscle activity, during continuous emotional experiences, elicited by movies. We found that transient zygomatic fluctuations were narrowly tuned to a positive emotional experience. During a positive but not a negative movie, zygomatic response patterns were consistent across participants, tracked with subjective ratings and co-varied with emotional dynamics. Corrugator activity evidenced a broader affective profile and larger individual variability. It was coordinated with tonic changes in emotional negativity and inversely coupled with transient changes in positive affect. Taken together, our results confirmed previous findings on the affective profiles of facial responses and extended them to temporal dynamics. They further uncovered important differences in temporal response characteristics of zygomatic and corrugator measures.
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In a series of experiments it was shown that such reactions are relatively fast, starting at 300–500 ms from the onset of visual stimuli (Dimberg and Thunberg, 1998), they do not require awareness of the external stimuli (Dimberg et al., 2000) and are fully automatic (Dimberg et al., 2002) (Fig. 9). Facial reactions to emotional stimuli are thought to occur in response to any stimulus with affective valence (Dimberg, 1986) but have been studied mainly in response to others’ emotional facial displays. It is a very common error, even in the scientific literature, to assimilate affective facial displays such as expressions of happiness (smile) or sadness (frown) to the phenomena of laughing and crying.
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^☆: This study was supported by grants from Alrutz' Donationsfond, Uppsala University, Sweden.

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Facial reactions to fear-relevant and fear-irrelevant stimuli☆

Abstract

Biological Psychology

Evolution of facial expression

Science

Nonverbal behavior and the theory of emotion: The facial feedback hypothesis

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Electromyograms as measures of extent and affectivity of information processing

American Psychologist

The expression of emotion in man and animals

Facial reactions to facial expressions

Psychophysiology

Emotional conditioning to facial stimuli: A psychobiological analysis

Cross-cultural studies of facial expressions

Contour-following integrator for dynamic tracking of electromyographic data

Psychophysiology

Electromyographic studies of facial expressions of emotions and patterns of emotions