Relationships among Facial Mimicry, Emotional Experience, and Emotion Recognition

Sato, Wataru; Fujimura, Tomomi; Kochiyama, Takanori; Suzuki, Naoto

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0057889

Cited by 101 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…This is subtended by somatosensory‐related cortices and could be linked to facial mimicry, the tendency to replicate others' facial expressions 128, 129. Hence, in HCs, facial electromyography (EMG) could highlight congruent facial muscle responses to facial expressions, which could foster emotion recognition 130, 131, 132. However, one of the most frequent and distinctive Parkinsonian motor symptoms is hypomimia 1.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Facial emotion recognition in Parkinson's disease: A review and new hypotheses

et al. 2018

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Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder classically characterized by motor symptoms. Among them, hypomimia affects facial expressiveness and social communication and has a highly negative impact on patients' and relatives' quality of life. Patients also frequently experience nonmotor symptoms, including emotional‐processing impairments, leading to difficulty in recognizing emotions from faces. Aside from its theoretical importance, understanding the disruption of facial emotion recognition in PD is crucial for improving quality of life for both patients and caregivers, as this impairment is associated with heightened interpersonal difficulties. However, studies assessing abilities in recognizing facial emotions in PD still report contradictory outcomes. The origins of this inconsistency are unclear, and several questions (regarding the role of dopamine replacement therapy or the possible consequences of hypomimia) remain unanswered. We therefore undertook a fresh review of relevant articles focusing on facial emotion recognition in PD to deepen current understanding of this nonmotor feature, exploring multiple significant potential confounding factors, both clinical and methodological, and discussing probable pathophysiological mechanisms. This led us to examine recent proposals about the role of basal ganglia‐based circuits in emotion and to consider the involvement of facial mimicry in this deficit from the perspective of embodied simulation theory. We believe our findings will inform clinical practice and increase fundamental knowledge, particularly in relation to potential embodied emotion impairment in PD. © 2018 The Authors. Movement Disorders published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Facial emotion recognition in Parkinson's disease: A review and new hypotheses

et al. 2018

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“…One measure that has more commonly been employed to study sex differences in empathy is facial electromyographic (EMG), which measures facial mimicry, and is positively associated with empathy (Dimberg et al, 2011; Dimberg and Thunberg, 2012) and facial expression recognition (e.g., Sato et al, 2013). Indeed, a number of studies report greater facial muscle reactivity in females, compared to males, when exposed to facial expressions (Dimberg and Lundquist, 1990; Lundqvist, 1995).…”

Section: Neuronal Mechanisms For Empathymentioning

confidence: 99%

Empathy: Gender effects in brain and behavior

Christov-Moore

Simpson

Coudé

et al. 2014

Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

776

479

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Evidence suggests that there are differences in the capacity for empathy between males and females. However, how deep do these differences go? Stereotypically, females are portrayed as more nurturing and empathetic, while males are portrayed as less emotional and more cognitive. Some authors suggest that observed gender differences might be largely due to cultural expectations about gender roles. However, empathy has both evolutionary and developmental precursors, and can be studied using implicit measures, aspects that can help elucidate the respective roles of culture and biology. This article reviews evidence from ethology, social psychology, economics, and neuroscience to show that there are fundamental differences in implicit measures of empathy, with parallels in development and evolution. Studies in nonhuman animals and younger human populations (infants/children) offer converging evidence that sex differences in empathy have phylogenetic and ontogenetic roots in biology and are not merely cultural byproducts driven by socialization. We review how these differences may have arisen in response to males’ and females’ different roles throughout evolution. Examinations of the neurobiological underpinnings of empathy reveal important quantitative gender differences in the basic networks involved in affective and cognitive forms of empathy, as well as a qualitative divergence between the sexes in how emotional information is integrated to support decision making processes. Finally, the study of gender differences in empathy can be improved by designing studies with greater statistical power and considering variables implicit in gender (e.g., sexual preference, prenatal hormone exposure). These improvements may also help uncover the nature of neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders in which one sex is more vulnerable to compromised social competence associated with impaired empathy.

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“…For instance, involuntary activation of the corrugator muscle measured while one is seeing dynamic facial expressions correlated with facial emotion perception ability (Künecke, Hildebrandt, Recio, Sommer, & Wilhelm, 2014) and with the experience of negative valence (Sato, Fujimura, Kochiyama, & Suzuki, 2013).…”

Section: Brain-behavior Relationships In the Perception Of Social Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are event-related potentials to dynamic facial expressions of emotion related to individual differences in the accuracy of processing facial expressions and identity?

Recio

Wilhelm²,

Sommer

et al. 2017

Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci

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Despite a wealth of knowledge about the neural mechanisms behind emotional facial expression processing, little is known about how they relate to individual differences in social cognition abilities. We studied individual differences in the event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by dynamic facial expressions. First, we assessed the latent structure of the ERPs, reflecting structural face processing in the N170, and the allocation of processing resources and reflexive attention to emotionally salient stimuli, in the early posterior negativity (EPN) and the late positive complex (LPC). Then we estimated brain-behavior relationships between the ERP factors and behavioral indicators of facial identity and emotionprocessing abilities. Structural models revealed that the participants who formed faster structural representations of neutral faces (i.e., shorter N170 latencies) performed better at face perception (r = -.51) and memory (r = -.42). The N170 amplitude was not related to individual differences in face cognition or emotion processing. The latent EPN factor correlated with emotion perception (r = .47) and memory (r = .32), and also with face perception abilities (r = .41). Interestingly, the latent factor representing the difference in EPN amplitudes between the two neutral control conditions (chewing and blinking movements) also correlated with emotion perception (r = .51), highlighting the importance of tracking facial changes in the perception of emotional facial expressions. The LPC factor for negative expressions correlated with the memory for emotional facial expressions. The links revealed between the latency and strength of activations of brain systems and individual differences in processing socioemotional information provide new insights into the brain mechanisms involved in social communication.

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Relationships among Facial Mimicry, Emotional Experience, and Emotion Recognition

Cited by 101 publications

References 41 publications

Facial emotion recognition in Parkinson's disease: A review and new hypotheses

Facial emotion recognition in Parkinson's disease: A review and new hypotheses

Empathy: Gender effects in brain and behavior

Are event-related potentials to dynamic facial expressions of emotion related to individual differences in the accuracy of processing facial expressions and identity?

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