Facial mimicry, empathy, and emotion recognition: a meta-analysis of correlations

Abstract

A number of prominent theories have linked tendencies to mimick others' facial movements to empathy and facial emotion recognition, but evidence for such links is uneven. We conducted a meta-analysis of correlations of facial mimicry with empathy and facial emotion recognition skills. Other factors were also examined for moderating influence, e.g. facets of empathy measured, facial muscles recorded, and facial emotions being mimicked. Summary effects were estimated with a random-effects model and a meta-regression analysis was used to identify factors moderating these effects. 162 effects from 28 studies were submitted. The summary effect size indicated a significant weak positive relationship between facial mimicry and empathy, but not facial emotion recognition. The moderator analysis revealed that stronger correlations between facial mimicry and empathy were observed for static vs. dynamic facial stimuli, and for implicit vs. explicit instances of facial emotion processing. No differences were seen between facial emotions, facial muscles, emotional and cognitive facets of empathy, or state and trait measures of empathy. The results support the claim that stronger facial mimicry responses are positively related to higher dispositions for empathy, but the weakness and variability of this effect suggest that this relationship is conditional on not-fully understood factors.

Facial mimicry and metacognitive judgments in emotion recognition – modulated by social anxiety and autistic traits?

“…Given that some surprise expression were not of neutral valence but could rather be categorized as 'positively surprised', this positive affect might have been reflected in the facial EMG responses. Crucially, adding to the current discussion on the role of facial mimicry in emotion recognition (see Holland et al, 2020), our study could reveal a link between EMG responses to happy and sad expressions and associated recognition accuracy. More specifically, facial muscle activation patterns in the observer which are congruent to muscle activations underlying observed emotional facial expressions, i.e.…”

“…However, facial mimicry does not seem to be necessary for facial emotion recognition as demonstrated in patients with the Möbius syndrome (Bogart & Matsumoto, 2010). The potential function of facial mimicry in emotion recognition has recently been evaluated in a meta-analysis which could not provide evidence for a significant relationship (Holland et al, 2020). One confounding factor might, once again, be the ecological validity of the emotional expressions.…”

Social functioning in individuals affected by childhood maltreatment: establishing a research agenda to inform interventions

“…Many socially relevant skills and processes are not yet fully understood in normally developing individuals. For example, the role of automatic imitation of facial expressions in facial emotion recognition (155) and the biological (e.g., endocrinological) factors that determine how close we prefer to stand to someone (137,140) still need to be understood in a comprehensive way. Equally, the concept of allostatic load provides a key biological framework through which links between stress, mental health, and physical health can be understood.…”

Fact or artifact? Demand characteristics and participants’ beliefs can moderate, but do not fully account for, the effects of facial feedback on emotional experience

“…Our evidence of a non-artifactual facial feedback effect is notable given that researchers have posited that facial feedback plays an important role in a variety of social and emotional processes. This includes emotion recognition (Marmolejo-Ramos et al, 2020;Niedenthal et al, 2010;Wood et al, 2016), social perception (Niedenthal, Barsalou, Lawrence Winkielman, et al, 2005), the experience of empathetic and vicarious emotions (Hatfield et al, 1992;Hoffman, 2001;Holland et al, 2020), attitude contagion (Skinner et al, 2020), the processing of emotional words and concepts (Neal & Chartrand, 2011;Niedenthal, 2007;Niedenthal et al, 2009;Winkielman et al, 2018), and decision making (Carpenter & Niedenthal, 2020). For example, embodied facial mimicry is one mechanism-among many-that some researchers believe guides emotion recognition (see Wood et al, 2016b for a complete model).…”