Citation

Müller T, Schäfer R, Hahn S, Franz M. Int. J. Psychophysiol. 2019; 139: 33-39.

Affiliation

Clinical Institute for Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy (15.16), Heinrich-Heine-University, Moorenstraße 5, Geb, 15.16, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany. Electronic address: matthias.franz@uni-duesseldorf.de.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2019.01.001

PMID

30695699

Abstract

Facial mimicry, the unconscious imitation of others' affective facial expressions, serves as an important basis for interpersonal communication. Although there are many studies dealing with this phenomenon regarding the interaction between adults, only few experiments have explored facial mimicry in response to affective facial expressions of children. In the following study affect-prototypical video clips of children's and adults' faces were presented to 44 adults while the activity of corrugator supercilii and zygomaticus muscles was electromyographically measured. A discrete mimic reaction was detected in response to each basic affect (fear, disgust, happiness, sadness, surprise and anger). The activity of corrugator supercilii muscle was significantly lower when affective facial expressions of children were presented in contrast to those of adults. In addition, negative correlations between alexithymia and the averaged facial EMG activity were detected.

Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Language: en

Keywords

Affect; Children's face; Facial electromyography; Facial mimicry; PSYCAFE