Facial feedback theory: gestures that create emotions

Do facial Muscle movements influence our emotions?

The theory of facial feedback proposes that facial movements associated with a certain emotion can influence affective experiences.. It is one of the most representative theories in the psychological study of emotions and cognition, which is why it continues to be discussed and experimented with constantly.

In this article we will see what is the theory of facial feedbackhow it was defined and what have been some of its experimental verifications.

Facial feedback theory does facial movement create emotions?

The relationship between cognition and affective experiences has been widely studied by psychology. Among other things, attempts have been made to explain how emotions occur, how we make them conscious, and what their function is at both the individual and social levels.

Some of the research in this field suggests that affective experiences occur after we cognitively process a stimulus associated with an emotion. In turn, the latter would generate a series of facial reactions, for example a smile, that account for the emotion we are experiencing.

However, facial feedback theory, or facial feedback theory, suggests that the opposite phenomenon can also occur: making movements with the facial muscles related to a certain emotion related to a certain emotion has a significant impact on how we experience it, even without the need for intermediary cognitive processing.

It is called facial "feedback" theory precisely because it suggests that muscle activation of the face can generate sensory feedback to the brain. can generate a sensory feedback to the brain, which ultimately allows us to consciouslyThis is what ultimately allows us to consciously experience and process an emotion.

Background and related researchers

The theory of facial feedback has its antecedents in the theories of the late 19th century, which prioritized the role of muscular activation with the subjective experience of emotions..

These studies continue to the present day, and have developed significantly since the 1960's, when theories on affectivity gained special relevance in the social and cognitive sciences.

In a compilation on the background of facial feedback theory, Rojas (2016) reports that in the year 1962, the American psychologist Silvan Tomkins proposed that the sensory feedback carried out by the muscles of the face, and the sensations of the skin, can generate an experience or emotional state without the need for cognitive intercession. This represented the first major antecedent of facial feedback theory.

Subsequently, the theories of Tournages and Ellsworth were added in 1979, who spoke of the hypothesis of emotional modulation mediated by proprioception, which constitutes another of the great antecedents of the definition of this theory. From the same decade are also recognized the work done by Paul Ekman and Harrieh Oster on emotions and facial expressions. on emotions and facial expressions.

Between the 80's and 90's, many other researchers followed, who conducted numerous experiments to test whether muscular movements can indeed activate certain affective experiences. We will develop below some of the most recent ones, as well as the theoretical updates derived from them.

The sustained pen paradigm

In 1988, Fritz Strack, Leonard L. Martin, and Sabine Stepper conducted a study in which they asked participants to watch a series of funny cartoons. Meanwhile, some of them were asked to hold a pen with their lips. The others were asked to do the same, but with their teeth.

The above request had a reason: the facial posture that is performed when holding a pen between the teeth contraction of the zygomaticus major muscle, which we use for smilingwhich favors the smiling facial expression. In contrast, the facial movement performed with the pen between the lips contracts the orbicularis oculi muscle, which inhibits the muscle activity necessary to smile.

Thus, the researchers measured the facial activity associated with smiling, and wanted to see if the subjective experience of joy was related to that activity. The result was that the people who held the pen with their teeth reported that the cartoons were funnier than those who held the pen with their teeth. than those who held the pen with their lips.

The conclusion was that facial expressions associated with some emotion can indeed transform the subjective experience of that emotion; even when people are not fully aware of the facial gestures they are performing.

Is facial feedback inhibited when we are observed?

In 2016, almost three decades after Strack, Martin and Stepper's experiment, psychologist and mathematician Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, along with his collaborators, replicated the sustained pen experiment.

To everyone's surprise, they found insufficient evidence to support the effect of facial feedback. In response, Fritz Strack explained that Wagenmakers' experiment had been conducted with a variable that was not present in the original study, which surely had affected and determined the new results.

That variable was a video camera that recorded the activity of each of the participants.. According to Strack, the experience of feeling observed provoked by the video camera would have significantly modified the effect of facial feedback.

The effect of external observation on affective experience

In the face of the above controversy, Tom Noah,Yaacov Schul, and Ruth Mayo (2018) replicated the study again, first using a camera and then omitting its use. As part of their conclusions they propose that, far from being exclusionary, Strack and Wagenmakers' studies are consistent with theories explaining how feeling observed affects internal signals related to the most basic activity; in the related to the most basic activity, in this case facial feedback.

In their research, they found that the effect of facial feedback is most noticeable when there is no electronic device recording when there is no electronic device recording (whereby participants are not concerned about the monitoring of their activity).

In contrast, the effect decreases when participants know that they are being monitored by the video camera. The inhibition of the effect is explained in the following way: the experience of feeling that they are observed generates the need to adjust to external expectations, for which, internal information is unavailable or unprepared.

Thus, Noah, Schul, and Mayo (2018) concluded that the presence of the camera led participants to adopt the posture of a third perspective on the situation, and consequently, they generated less attunement to facial feedback from their own muscles.