Facial expression nature or nurture

By Roxanne Khamsi. Facial expressions appear to be at least partially inherited, according to a study of blind people and their relatives. Experts say the findings indicate that people do not always learn their expressions for certain emotions by copying the facial quirks they see as youngsters. The 51 volunteers were videotaped as they recounted happy, sad and aggravating life experiences, concentrated on puzzles and heard a gory story and an unexpected question in gibberish. The team entered the information into a computer, which analysed the sequences and frequencies of these facial movements using a sophisticated statistical program.

She believes we learn emotions from our own experiences. According to Emiliana Simon-Thomas, writing for Greater Good Magazine , most scientists would agree with Feldman-Barrett, but without abandoning the traditional view. Rather, emotions should be understood not exclusively by, say, facial expression alone, but within a larger context of behaviors voice, posture, etc. The answer probably lies somewhere in between: some of our emotions might have been born with us, while others might be a construct of our own experiences. Feldman-Barrett suggests that this mindfulness — attending to thoughts and sensations without judgment — can produce a state of mind where learned expectations have less influence on current experience.

Researchers have discovered that our society can influence the way we recognise other people's faces. Because face recognition is effortlessly achieved by people from all different cultures it was considered to be a basic mechanism universal among humans. However, by using analyses inspired by novel brain imaging technology, researchers at the University of Glasgow have discovered that cultural differences cause us to look at faces differently. Lead researcher Dr Roberto Caldara said: "In a series of eye-movement studies, we showed that social experience has an impact on how people look at faces.

We examined genetic and environmental influences on recognition of facial expressions in pairs of year-old monozygotic 83 pairs and dizygotic pairs twins. Total correct recognition responses to each facial expression comprised the dependent variables. Twin data examined genetic and environmental contributions to variables and their correlations. Results support a common psychometric factor influenced primarily by additive genetic influences across expressions with discrimination of specific expressions due largely to non-shared environmental influences.