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FACIAL EXPRESSIONS & EMOTION  INTRODUCTION Facial expressions are one of the most basic forms of communication, and are used to convey important emotions. Researchers have agreed upon seven basic and universal facial expressions of emotion: Anger, happiness, fear, surprise, disgust, sadness and contempt. FACIAL EXPRESSION IN INFANTS The ability to express emotions through facial expressions appears early in infancy. Initially, crying is the only way for newborns to express their needs, but within a few days, they begin to react to the facial expressions of their parents, especially positive expressions, such as smiling, and they also begin to imitate them. At approximately one year of age, babies begin to alter their behavior in response to their parents facial expressions. Researchers believe this influence has survival purposes. Children seem primed to look for their parents’ reaction or “ok” in helping them assess the safety of a situation. You may have witnessed a child you falls and scrapes her knee, but decides whether or not to cry based on her mother or father’s reaction! It was Charles Darwin who said “expressions evolved because they allowed our forebears to tell at a glance the difference between a friendly stranger and a hostile one.” Scientists Joseph A. Gardner and Paul Ekman conducted a study on the recognition of facial expressions at various distances. They chose six emotional expressions, happiness, sadness, surprise, fear, anger and disgust, and found that subjects were able to identify the correct emotion at a distance of up to 45 metres. These findings further the claim that the ability to interpret facial expressions has survival and safety value. CULTURAL INFLUENCE ON FACIAL EXPRESSIONS In every culture researchers have studied, such as Brazil, Chile, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, New Guinea, Scotland, Turkey and the United States, a majority of people were able to accurately identify the seven universal facial expressions of people in cultures other than their own. It was also discovered that people who lived in isolated cultures, without influence from the medial or other societies, could also recognize the emotion being expressed by people of other cultures. These findings support the theory of a genetic basis for facial expressions, and scientist Paul Ekman suggested a universal neurophysiology in the facial muscles associated with certain emotions.
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