The Duchenne Smile: Emotional Expression and Brain Physiology II
Ekman, P., Davidson, R., & Friesen, W.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1990, vol 58, 2, 342-353.
Duchenne in 1872 as quoted in this paper
p342 ‘The emotion of frank joy is expressed on the face by the combined contraction of the zygomaticus major muscle and the obricularis oculi. The first obeys the will but the second is only put to play by the sweet emotion of the soul; the …. Fake joy, the deceitful laugh, cannot provoke the contraction of this latter muscle…. The muscle around the eye does not obey the will; it is only brought into play by true feeling, by an agreeable emotion. Its inertia, in smiling, unmasks a true friend’ (1862/in press)’
? KRO does this imply that Duchenne thought that there was a cortical influence?
Duchennne demonstrated this by comparing 'the smile' elicted by stimulating zygomatic major with a spontaneous smile of enjoyment. As a result the smile resulting from the simultaneous activation of zygomatic and orbicularis has been named the Duchenne smile (Ekman, 1989). Ekman indicates that this finding undermines the view that facial expression is not universal. P350. ‘ Clearly the Duchenne smile, in which the orbicularis oculi, pars lateralis muscle, that orbits the eye is contracted in addition to the zygomatic major muscle’s pull on the lip corners, is a better sign of enjoyment than other kinds of smiles.’ Ekman (1985) has identified and described 14 other types of smile. (Ekman and Frieson, 1982) p343 ‘ enjoyment smiles can be distinguished from other smiles not only on the basis of the muscles that produce the smile (i.e. the Duchenne smile) but also on the timing and duration of the smile.’
Pre 1990s research rarely recognized this distinction an observation that applies to both anthropological as well as experimental studies. P343 (Ekman et al., 1988) ‘suggested that the failure to distinguish among smiles may account for contradictory findings in studies of interpersonal deception. They reviewed 12 studies conducted over the last 10 years that found that subjects smiled equally often when telling the truth as when telling a lie…… This did not happen in their study, in which the Ducehenne smile was distinguished from other smiles’
KRO raises the questions
1. Is excitation of orbicularis the indication of an involuntary 'happy' response?
2. Are the 'recievers' able to detect these differences - must be some research literature on this.
Social versus solitary
p344 'Some investigators (Andrew, 1963; Kraut, 1978; Smith,1985)
KRO need to do lit search
have taken the position that facial expressions should not be conceptualized in terms of emotions, but only as social interactive signals. In a solitary, private situation they expect that facial expressions will not occur or, if they do, they will not be related to subjective emotional experience or physiological changes. We believe that this view that facial expressions occur only during social interaction is incorrect. …………..Although the social context often occasions and amplifies an expression of emotion, it may also dampen or inhibit an emotional expression.’ ‘Emotional experience and expression would not, from our vantage point, be absent when an individual is alone.'
P344 ‘Ekman and Friesen (1969) coined the phrase "display rules" to describe
attempts to manage facial expression, in terms of who can show what emotion to
whom and when.
KRO need lit search on display rules
Hemisphere asymmetry ( specialization) for emotion
p344
‘A growing literature that has established differences between the two hemispheres of the brain in their involvement in certain positive and negative emotions suggests that there would be different physiological activity associated with the Duchenne smile as compared to other kinds of smiling (see Davidson, 1984, 1987; Silberman & Weingartner, 1986; and Tucker & Frederick, 1989, for reviews). The evidence on hemispheric activity and emotion comes from a diversity of sources, including studies of the emotional consequences of unilateral brain damage (e.g., Robinson, Kubos, Starr, Rao, & Price, 1984), of unilateral injections of sodium amytal in patients prior to neurosurgery (e.g., Lee, Loring, Meador, & Flanigin, 1988; Rossi & Rosadini, 1967), and of asymmetries in regional brain activation in normals using measures based on both brain electrical activity and regional cerebral blood flow (e.g., Davidson, 1984,1987).’
KRO some of these refs may be worth checking
‘The asymmetries associated with the production of emotion have been most consistently observed in the frontal and anterior temporal regions. Subjects show relative left-sided activation during certain positive emotions compared with negative emotions and more relative right-sided activation during certain negative emotions compared with positive emotions. It is important to note that the findings are always described as relative differences between two or more conditions. Predictions in terms of absolute asymmetry are not offered, at least with small sample sizes, because there are large and stable individual differences in absolute asymmetry, upon which phasic effects are superimposed. Thus, in a subject with extreme right frontal activation, happiness may not produce absolute left frontal activation. Rather, compared with disgust, one would expect more left frontal activation during happiness.'
Experimental design – not several aspects of this design have critical implications
Used a situation where participants were not trying to communicate
Participants not told about the video recording until afterwards
Used silent films. 5 films , 1 to establish a baseline then two that were expected to produce a positive and two that were expected to produce a negative
37, right handed female participants.
Amusing films used for positive experience and therefore Ekman et al go on to describe the difference between amusement and happiness and experiential issues in general.
Aim p344 ‘ to examine types of smiling and cerebral hemisphere activity in adults’ therefore measured EEG.
Ecological comment
P344 and example ‘When watching positive films, two other kinds of smailes may occur, anticipatory smiles, when someone anticipates the likelihood of soon experiencing enjoyment; and positive-negative blends, when the film evokes a memory that blends enjoyment that blends with some negative emotion’
EEG Recording Procedure
KRO follow up any subsequent work on asymmetry and EEG activation
The EEG was recorded from the left and right frontal, central, anterior temporal, and parietal regions (F3, F4, C3, C4, T3, T4, P3, P4) all referred to vertex (Cz) using a lycra stretchable cap (Electro-Cap). For more information about these recordings, as well as more details about the procedure, emotion-arousing stimuli, and video recordings, see the accompanying article (Davidson, Ekman, Saron, Senulis, & Friesen, 1990). That article also describes in the introduction eight methodological desiderata for psychophysiological research on emotion that are relevant to this study as well.
'In this experiment the onset and offset of each facial action had to be determined to
coordinate the facial actions with the EEG record.'
EEG analysis
Power bands for baseline and active periods of smiling ( therefore duration of the smile had to be measured and indicated for EEG record) Relied on artefact free EEG of at least 1.02 ms or longer which occurred concurrently with Duchenne ( D) and other (O) type of smiles during positive films only. DVs were power density in milli volts/Hz in the alpha and beta bands. Authors predication was that major effects would occur in the alpha band with a lower value indicating greater activation. KRO rather naïve way of distinguishing between alpha and beta
Results
1. p347 There is an 'Interaction between film type ( + or - ) and the number of Duchenne smiles and also their duration. Duchenne smiles to + film interspersed with other types of smile e.g. anticapatory
2. p350 - the Duchenne smile was found, as predicted, to be related to enjoyment—in terms of when it occurs and how it relates both to subjective experience and distinctive physiological changes—and other smiling was not.'
' The stimulus films we used to arouse positive emotions showed amusing events, not other types of positive emotions, and as expected, Duchenne smiles correlated with the report of amusement rather than contentment. Although Duchenne smiles also were correlated with reports of the more general term happiness, partial correlations showed that this was due to the correlation between happiness and amusement ratings. If other situations were examined in which the subjects experienced relief, contentment, or sensory pleasure rather than amusement, we would expect Dsmiles to correlate with the subjective experience of those emotions, not amusement, but this remains to be demonstrated.
3. p351 'these data are consistent with earlier reports that facial expressions of emotion do occur when people are alone (Ekman, 1972; Ekman et al., 1980) and contradict the theoretical proposals of those who view expressions solely as social signals'
4. asymmetry results
p351 note only 13/37 participant results deemed suitable .'The cerebral asymmetry findings indicate that, as predicted, the two types of smiling differ in the pattern of regional brain activity with which each is associated. Duchenne smiles are associated with more left-sided anterior temporal and parietal activation compared with other smiles. Although the left-sided anterior temporal activation was predicted to accompany positive affect, it is not clear what activation of the left parietal region might reflect in this study. Other EEG asymmetry studies have found that verbal cognitive activity reliably increases left parietal activation (e.g., Davidson et al., in press; Ehrlichman & Wiener, 1979). It is therefore possible that in the present context, the Duchenne smiles were accompanied by more verbal thinking compared with other smiles. In future studies it would be useful to assess cognitive activity in addition to experienced emotion, in order to evaluate this suggestion. The lack of any difference in central EEG activity between the Duchenne smiles and other smiles suggests that the differences in asymmetry between these smile types that were seen in other regions are not a function of differences in motor asymmetry, because central EEG asymmetries are very sensitive to motor differences between the two sides of the body (e.g., Coles, Gratton, Bashore, Eriksen, & Donchin, 1985; Kutas & Donchin, 1974)'
p 351 'Other smiles show a pattern of activation asymmetry similar to what has been reported for withdrawal-related negative affect (see Davidson et al., 1990). In fact, when we examined other smiles, we found that the majority did contain facial actions denoting negative emotion.
Contrary to prediction, Duchenne smiles did not differ significantly from baseline. This is the same pattern as was found for happy facial expressions in the accompanying article (Davidson et al., 1990). Davidson (1984) has reasoned that positive emotion is associated with left-sided anterior activation relative to a baseline only when the positive emotion is accompanied by approach behavior. As we noted in the accompanying article (Davidson et al., 1990), not all forms of positive affect include an approach component. The Duchenne smile marks a number of rather different positive affective states, not all of which involve approach. For example, contentment may not involve either approach or withdrawal.'
