The Use of Facial Mimicry in Emotional Expressions Recognition Tasks

Abstract

Facial mimicry is an involuntary behavior capable of facilitating the transmission of relevant non-verbal information in different social contexts. The present study aimed to analyze the ability to recognize emotional expressions while the observer tenses their own face or imitates the target face. The hypothesis used was that individuals who tension their own face or imitate the expression of facial emotion have less or greater probability of success in performing tasks to recognize emotional expressions on faces, respectively. The sample consisted of 30 participants, divided into two experimental groups: the Imitation Group - GI (18 female participants and 12 male participants) and the Noise Group - GR (18 female participants and 12 male participants). The experiment consisted of presenting pictures of actors facially expressing a basic emotion for 10 seconds; the participants should then observe or intervene facially, imitating or tensing their own face (according to the allocated group, Imitation or Noise). After 10 seconds of executing the instruction (observing, imitating or interfering), the participant should respond - among the options joy, sadness, disgust, anger, surprise and fear - the emotion corresponding to the image. The results showed significant differences when comparing the tasks of tensioning or imitating the target face, suggesting that the alteration of the observer’s own face may influence during the performance of a facial emotion recognition task.

Keywords:
Facial mimicry; Emotions; Facial expression