The not face: A grammaticalization of facial expressions of emotion

Benitez-Quiroz, C. Fabian; Wilbur, Ronnie Β.; Martı́nez, Aleix M.

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2016.02.004

Cited by 59 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…For example, it has been noted that, as in the case of emotional facial expressions, vocalizations produce concomitant facial movements around the mouth and other features, which could be processed simultaneously with auditory components (Ghazanfar & Takahashi, 2014). Psychological studies revealed that facial expressions are used as grammatical markers in face-to-face communication (Pfau & Quer, 2010;Benitez-Quiroz et al, 2016). Language studies also indicated that both mouth movements and the acoustic envelope of speech mainly exhibit a theta rhythm (2-7 Hz), which corresponds to the typical rhythm of dynamic facial expressions (Chandrasekaran et al, 2009).…”

Section: Lateralitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Widespread and lateralized social brain activity for processing dynamic facial expressions

Sato

Kochiyama²,

Uono

et al. 2019

Human Brain Mapping

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Dynamic facial expressions of emotions constitute natural and powerful means of social communication in daily life. A number of previous neuroimaging studies have explored the neural mechanisms underlying the processing of dynamic facial expressions, and indicated the activation of certain social brain regions (e.g., the amygdala) during such tasks. However, the activated brain regions were inconsistent across studies, and their laterality was rarely evaluated. To investigate these issues, we measured brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging in a relatively large sample (n = 51) during the observation of dynamic facial expressions of anger and happiness and their corresponding dynamic mosaic images. The observation of dynamic facial expressions, compared with dynamic mosaics, elicited stronger activity in the bilateral posterior cortices, including the inferior occipital gyri, fusiform gyri, and superior temporal sulci. The dynamic facial expressions also activated bilateral limbic regions, including the amygdalae and ventromedial prefrontal cortices, more strongly versus mosaics. In the same manner, activation was found in the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and left cerebellum. Laterality analyses comparing original and flipped images revealed right hemispheric dominance in the superior temporal sulcus and IFG and left hemispheric dominance in the cerebellum. These results indicated that the neural mechanisms underlying processing of dynamic facial expressions include widespread social brain regions associated with perceptual, emotional, and motor functions, and include a clearly lateralized (right cortical and left cerebellar) network like that involved in language processing.

show abstract

Section: Lateralitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Widespread and lateralized social brain activity for processing dynamic facial expressions

Sato

Kochiyama²,

Uono

et al. 2019

Human Brain Mapping

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Campbell et al, 1999 ; Keltner et al, 2003 ; McCullough et al, 2005 ), which we will refer to as “expressives.” Several affective facial expressions associated with a set of basic emotional states such as anger, sadness, or joy are claimed to be universal and therefore cross-culturally conveyed in a similar way (cf. Ekman and Friesen, 1971 ; Izard, 1994 ; Benitez-Quiroz et al, 2016 ). Affective facial expressions include several types, however.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Production and Comprehension of Prosodic Markers in Sign Language Imperatives

et al. 2018

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In signed and spoken language sentences, imperative mood and the corresponding speech acts such as for instance, command, permission or advice, can be distinguished by morphosyntactic structures, but also solely by prosodic cues, which are the focus of this paper. These cues can express paralinguistic mental states or grammatical meaning, and we show that in American Sign Language (ASL), they also exhibit the function, scope, and alignment of prosodic, linguistic elements of sign languages. The production and comprehension of prosodic facial expressions and temporal patterns therefore can shed light on how cues are grammaticalized in sign languages. They can also be informative about the formal semantic and pragmatic properties of imperative types not only in ASL, but also more broadly. This paper includes three studies: one of production (Study 1) and two of comprehension (Studies 2 and 3). In Study 1, six prosodic cues are analyzed in production: temporal cues of sign and hold duration, and non-manual cues including tilts of the head, head nods, widening of the eyes, and presence of mouthings. Results of Study 1 show that neutral sentences and commands are well distinguished from each other and from other imperative speech acts via these prosodic cues alone; there is more limited differentiation among explanation, permission, and advice. The comprehension of these five speech acts is investigated in Deaf ASL signers in Study 2, and in three additional groups in Study 3: Deaf signers of German Sign Language (DGS), hearing non-signers from the United States, and hearing non-signers from Germany. Results of Studies 2 and 3 show that the ASL group performs significantly better than the other 3 groups and that all groups perform above chance for all meaning types in comprehension. Language-specific knowledge, therefore, has a significant effect on identifying imperatives based on targeted cues. Command has the most cues associated with it and is the most accurately identified imperative type across groups—indicating, we suggest, its special status as the strongest imperative in terms of addressing the speaker's goals. Our findings support the view that the cues are accessible in their content across groups, but that their language-particular combinatorial possibilities and distribution within sentences provide an advantage to ASL signers in comprehension and attest to their prosodic status.

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“…(See Benitez‐Quiroz et al. for a possible model, which seeks the evolutionary roots of the headshake used to express negation in sign and in gestures. )…”

Section: Animal Languagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

What is Super Semantics?^*

Schlenker

2018

Philosophical Perspectives

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Formal semantics was born from an attempt to state explicit rules to predict the truth conditions of natural language sentences. But this goal can be extended beyond language stricto sensu, to a variety of representational systems in nature. This was part of the program of semiotics (e.g. Morris 1938), construed as a general theory of signs; but it never got integrated to the research program of formal semantics. We argue for such an integration, on two general grounds. First, the class of objects that interact with or display uncontroversially linguistic properties is larger than was initially thought. Spoken and especially sign language make use of rich iconic resources which interact with logical structure but cannot be captured without a 'formal semantics with iconicity'. In addition, recent comparisons between sign, speech and gestures strongly suggest that language is multi-modal and that gestures are full citizens of the linguistic world: they trigger familiar inferential types (presuppositions or supplements) when they co-occur with or follow words; and when they fully replace words, their informational content gets divided among familiar slots of the inferential typology, and they even follow a 'gestural grammar' that is in part reminiscent of sign language grammar. Second, independently from these language-internal motivations, the proposed extension leads to a far broader typology of meaning operations in nature, one that includes animal meanings, pictorial meanings, musical meanings, and more.

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The not face: A grammaticalization of facial expressions of emotion

Cited by 59 publications

References 41 publications

Widespread and lateralized social brain activity for processing dynamic facial expressions

Widespread and lateralized social brain activity for processing dynamic facial expressions

Production and Comprehension of Prosodic Markers in Sign Language Imperatives

What is Super Semantics?^*

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The not face: A grammaticalization of facial expressions of emotion

Cited by 59 publications

References 41 publications

Widespread and lateralized social brain activity for processing dynamic facial expressions

Widespread and lateralized social brain activity for processing dynamic facial expressions

Production and Comprehension of Prosodic Markers in Sign Language Imperatives

What is Super Semantics?*

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

What is Super Semantics?^*