How the Experience of Emotion is Modulated by Facial Feedback.

The facial feedback hypothesis states that facial actions modulate subjective experiences of emotion. Using the voluntary facial action technique, in which the participants react with instruction induced smiles and frowns when exposed to positive and negative emotional pictures and then rate the pleasantness of these stimuli, four questions were addressed in the present study. The results in Experiment 1 demonstrated a feedback effect because participants experienced the stimuli as more pleasant during smiling as compared to when frowning.

Empathy, emotional contagion, and rapid facial reactions to angry and happy facial expressions.

The aim was to explore whether emotional empathy is related to the capacity to react with rapid facial reactions to facial expressions of emotion, and if emotional empathy is related to the ability to experience a similar emotion as expressed by another person. People high or low in emotional empathy were exposed to pictures of happy and angry faces while their facial electromyography from the zygomaticus major and corrugator supercilii muscle regions was detected. High empathy participants rapidly reacted with larger zygomatic muscle activity to happy as compared with angry faces as early as after 500 ms after stimulus onset, and with larger corrugator muscle activity to angry than to happy faces after 500 ms.

Speech anxiety and rapid emotional reactions to angry and happy facial expressions.

The aim was to explore whether people high as opposed to low in speech anxiety react with a more pronounced differential facial response when exposed to angry and happy facial stimuli. High and low fear participants were selected based on their scores on a fear of public speaking questionnaire. All participants were exposed to pictures of angry and happy faces while facial electromyographic (EMG) activity from the Corrugator supercilii and the Zygomaticus major muscle regions was recorded.

Unconscious facial reactions to emotional facial expressions.

Studies reveal that when people are exposed to emotional facial expressions, they spontaneously react with distinct facial electromyographic (EMG) reactions in emotion-relevant facial muscles. These reactions reflect, in part, a tendency to mimic the facial stimuli. We investigated whether corresponding facial reactions can be elicited when people are unconsciously exposed to happy and angry facial expressions.

Facial reactions to happy and angry facial expressions: evidence for right hemisphere dominance.

Previous research on asymmetric effects of emotional expression and brain-hemispheric asymmetry has supported opposing theories of hemispheric dominance in the control of emotional reactions. In the present study, 32 subjects were exposed to pictures of happy and angry facial stimuli while facial electromyographic (EMG) activity from the zygomatic major and the corrugator supercilii muscle regions was detected from the left and right sides of the face. The subjects reacted spontaneously and rapidly with larger zygomatic EMG activity to happy facial stimuli and larger corrugator EMG activity to angry stimuli.