Tamietto Marco, Castelli Lorys, Vighetti Sergio, Perozzo Paola, Geminiani Giuliano, Weiskrantz Lawrence, de Gelder Beatrice
Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory, Tilburg University, P.O. Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 Oct 20;106(42):17661-6. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0908994106. Epub 2009 Oct 5.
The spontaneous tendency to synchronize our facial expressions with those of others is often termed emotional contagion. It is unclear, however, whether emotional contagion depends on visual awareness of the eliciting stimulus and which processes underlie the unfolding of expressive reactions in the observer. It has been suggested either that emotional contagion is driven by motor imitation (i.e., mimicry), or that it is one observable aspect of the emotional state arising when we see the corresponding emotion in others. Emotional contagion reactions to different classes of consciously seen and "unseen" stimuli were compared by presenting pictures of facial or bodily expressions either to the intact or blind visual field of two patients with unilateral destruction of the visual cortex and ensuing phenomenal blindness. Facial reactions were recorded using electromyography, and arousal responses were measured with pupil dilatation. Passive exposure to unseen expressions evoked faster facial reactions and higher arousal compared with seen stimuli, therefore indicating that emotional contagion occurs also when the triggering stimulus cannot be consciously perceived because of cortical blindness. Furthermore, stimuli that are very different in their visual characteristics, such as facial and bodily gestures, induced highly similar expressive responses. This shows that the patients did not simply imitate the motor pattern observed in the stimuli, but resonated to their affective meaning. Emotional contagion thus represents an instance of truly affective reactions that may be mediated by visual pathways of old evolutionary origin bypassing cortical vision while still providing a cornerstone for emotion communication and affect sharing.
我们自发地倾向于与他人同步面部表情，这一现象通常被称为情绪感染。然而，情绪感染是否依赖于对引发刺激的视觉意识，以及观察者中表达反应展开的潜在过程是什么，目前尚不清楚。有人提出，情绪感染要么是由运动模仿（即模仿）驱动的，要么是当我们看到他人相应情绪时产生的情绪状态的一个可观察到的方面。通过向两名视觉皮层单侧受损并随之出现明显失明的患者的完整或盲视野呈现面部或身体表情的图片，比较了对不同类别的有意识看到和“未看到”刺激的情绪感染反应。使用肌电图记录面部反应，并用瞳孔扩张测量唤醒反应。与看到的刺激相比，被动暴露于未看到的表情会引发更快的面部反应和更高的唤醒水平，因此表明当触发刺激由于皮质盲而无法被有意识地感知时，情绪感染也会发生。此外，视觉特征差异很大的刺激，如面部和身体姿势，会引发高度相似的表达反应。这表明患者并非简单地模仿刺激中观察到的运动模式，而是对其情感意义产生共鸣。因此，情绪感染代表了一种真正的情感反应实例，可能由古老进化起源的视觉通路介导，绕过皮质视觉，同时仍为情绪交流和情感分享提供基石。
