Context and personality key in understanding responses to emotional facial expressionsAugust 06, 2008It is well appreciated that facial expressions play a major role in non-verbal social communication among humans and other primates, because faces provide rapid access to information about the identity as well as the internal states and intentions of others. In his song, Mona Lisa, Nat King Cole reflected on the motivations for Mona Lisa's "mystic smile" and new data by scientists in Switzerland suggests that both the social context of a person's facial expression and certain facets of the viewer's personality could affect how our brain interprets the social meaning of someone else's smile or frown. In a new brain imaging study published in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, Pascal Vrtička and colleagues at the Swiss National Center for Affective Sciences hosted by the University of Geneva found that visually identical facial expressions can produce different patterns of responses in emotional brain areas when context changes their social meanings, and that these patterns of social sensitivity are strongly modulated by individual attachment style (i.e. how a person emotionally perceives and responds to others during social interactions, thought to be either secure, anxious or avoidant). In this study, the specific brain substrates underlying these individual differences in reaction to emotional stimuli are identified for the first time. Vrtička and colleagues manipulated the social significance of facial expressions by presenting them in different contexts while participants performed a pseudo-competitive game with virtual partners in the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner. The virtual partners could either be from allied or opponent teams and would display either a smiling or an angry expression in response to the success (or failure) of the participant. A smile could thus be perceived either as praising an accomplishment or mocking a failure, and a frown either as a sign of reproach or frustration.
When the virtual partners were seen as allies (i.e. smiling in response to the success of the participant or looking angry when the participant failed), happy faces activated the ventral striatum and ventral tegmental area (areas of the brain associated with reward processing), but this response was much weaker in participants with an avoidant attachment style. Angry faces, on the other hand, increased the activation of the amygdala (an area of the brain implicated in fear and arousal), especially in participants with an anxious attachment style. These activation patterns were very specific, because no response in reward circuits or amygdala was found for facial expressions of virtual partners seen as opponents. Instead, opponent's expressions led to increased activity in brain regions associated with theory of mind and alertness (superior temporal sulcus and anterior cingulate gyrus). The findings extend previous research into social emotion processing by showing that specific expressions in faces are processed differently in the human brain depending on the personality of the individual and the social context where the faces are perceived. Moreover, the data provide novel biological support for a link between an individual's attachment style and activity in brain systems implicated in reward and threat processing. Because both the ventral striatum and amygdala are key brain structures for learning and predicting motivational outcomes, they may play a critical role for the establishment of idiosyncratic affective responses to social cues based on past experience or developmental history. Vrtička and colleagues could for the first time capture the neural signatures of such behaviours by showing that avoidant participant's brains responded much less to the rewarding value of social support, whereas anxious participants displayed increased threat- or distress-related brain activity to social punishment. Vrtička and colleagues suggest that these data may ultimately help define appropriate intervention strategies in clinical disorders of attachment and social functioning, including social anxiety, social phobias and autism. Public Library of Science | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Related Facial Expressions Current Events and Facial Expressions News Articles Oh, what a feeling! People who have lost the ability to interpret emotion after a severe brain injury can regain this vital social skill by being re-educated to read body language, facial expressions and voice tone in others, according to a new study. Pain automatically activates facial muscle groups A study has found that people who facially express pain in a more intense way are not exaggerating if their perception of a painful stimulation is controlled. New way to help schizophrenia sufferers' social skills Researchers from the University of Newcastle are investigating a new way to help schizophrenia patients develop their communication and social skills. A direct gaze enhances face perception Gaze direction is significant for the processing of visual information from the human face. Researchers in an Academy of Finland funded research project have discovered that the visual system of the brain processes another person's face more efficiently when the person's gaze is straight ahead than when the gaze is averted. Study finds connections between genetics, brain activity and preference A team of researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has used brain imaging, genetics and experimental psychology techniques to identify a connection between brain reward circuitry, a behavioral measurement of preference and a gene variant that appears to influence both. Caltech and UNC research finds further evidence for genetic contribution to autism Some parents of children with autism evaluate facial expressions differently than the rest of us--and in a way that is strikingly similar to autistic patients themselves, according to new research by neuroscientist Ralph Adolphs of the California Institute of Technology and psychiatrist Joe Piven at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. UC San Diego computer scientist turns his face into a remote control A computer science Ph.D. student can turn his face into a remote control that speeds and slows video playback. The proof-of-concept demonstration is part of a larger project to use automated facial expression recognition to make robots more effective teachers. Improving anxiety treatment through the help of brain imaging: A potential future treatment strategy Wouldn't it be nice if our doctors could predict accurately whether we would respond to a particular medication" This question is important because research studies provide information about how groups of patients tend to respond to treatments, but inevitably, differences among groups of patients with the same diagnosis mean that findings about groups of patients may not apply to individuals from those groups. The untrained eye: Confusing sexual interest with friendliness New research from Indiana University and Yale suggests that college-age men confuse friendly non-verbal cues with cues for sexual interest because the men have a less discerning eye than women -- but their female peers aren't far behind. Turn that Frown Upside Down-Healthy Gums are Something to Smile About A smile is one of the most universally recognizable facial expressions, helping to depict an individual's happiness, confidence, attractiveness, sociability and sincerity. More Facial Expressions Current Events and Facial Expressions News Articles |
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