Physiological Psychology, Otto-Friedrich University Bamberg, Germany.
Biol Psychol. 2012 Feb;89(2):467-76. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2011.12.016. Epub 2012 Jan 4.
The ability to facially communicate physical distress (e.g. pain) can be essential to ensure help, support and clinical treatment for the individual experiencing physical distress. So far, it is not known to which degree this ability represents innate and biologically prepared programs or whether it requires visual learning. Here, we address this question by studying evoked and voluntary facial expressions of pain in congenitally blind (N=21) and sighted (N=42) individuals. The repertoire of evoked facial expressions was comparable in congenitally blind and sighted individuals; however, blind individuals were less capable of facially encoding different intensities of experimental pain. Moreover, blind individuals were less capable of voluntarily modulating their pain expression. We conclude that the repertoire of facial muscles being activated during pain is biologically prepared. However, visual learning is a prerequisite in order to encode different intensities of physical distress as well as for up- and down-regulation of one's facial expression.
面部传达身体不适（例如疼痛）的能力对于确保经历身体不适的个体获得帮助、支持和临床治疗至关重要。到目前为止，尚不清楚这种能力在多大程度上代表了先天的和生物准备好的程序，或者它是否需要视觉学习。在这里，我们通过研究先天性盲（N=21）和视力正常（N=42）个体的诱发和自愿的面部疼痛表情来解决这个问题。先天性盲和视力正常个体的诱发面部表情谱是可比的；然而，盲人群体对面部编码不同强度的实验性疼痛的能力较差。此外，盲人群体在自愿调节疼痛表达方面的能力也较差。我们的结论是，在疼痛期间被激活的面部肌肉的组合是先天准备好的。然而，视觉学习是编码不同强度的身体不适以及面部表情的上调和下调的前提条件。
