Because
facial mimicry has been shown to play an important role in the perception of emotions in others (Adolphs, Damasio, Tranel, Cooper, & Damasio, 2000), the aim of this study was to determine whether people with myasthenia are impaired in this task and whether their performance is related to gender, age, disease duration, and empathy level.
Washington, October 16 ( ANI ): New studies have shed light on how human and primate brains process and interpret facial expressions, and the role of facial mimicry in everything from deciphering an unclear smile to establishing relationships of power and status.
Facial mimicry - a social behaviour in which the observer automatically activates the same facial muscles as the person she is imitating - plays a role in learning, understanding, and rapport.
The studies reveal new roles of facial mimicry and some of its underlying brain circuitry.
Social status and self-perceptions of power affect facial mimicry, such that powerful individuals suppress their smile mimicry towards other high-status people, while powerless individuals mimic everyone's smile.
Subconscious facial mimicry plays a strong role in interpreting the meaning of ambiguous smiles.
While caretakers of girls may compensate for the deleterious effects of pacifier use, caretakers of boys may not, and this could leave boys more vulnerable to the consequences of disrupted facial mimicry," they wrote.
Pacifiers should have a lesser effect on facial mimicry if children only use them at night while sleeping, or even during the day outside of home (i.
Facial expressions also occur during the perception of music, illustrating a form of
facial mimicry, or emotional synchronization, which may reflect internal processes such as attention and recognition, and could conceivably implicate the involvement of the mirror-neuron system.
Dr Davila Ross said, "What is clear now is the building blocks of positive emotional contagion and empathy that refer to rapid involuntary
facial mimicry in humans evolved prior to humankind.
facial congruence) is closely related to facial mimicry since mimicry corresponds to the imitation of the facial expressions of others (for a review, see Hess, Philippot, & Blairy, 1999) and has been long understood as a form of primary empathy (Levenson & Ruef, 1992).
Dimberg, Thunberg, and Grunedal (2002) present evidence that facial mimicry occurs spontaneously and outside the conscious control of the participant.
