Künecke Janina, Hildebrandt Andrea, Recio Guillermo, Sommer Werner, Wilhelm Oliver
Department of Psychology, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Department of Psychology, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany ; Department of Psychology, University Ulm, Ulm, Germany.
PLoS One. 2014 Jan 28;9(1):e84053. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0084053. eCollection 2014.
Although most people can identify facial expressions of emotions well, they still differ in this ability. According to embodied simulation theories understanding emotions of others is fostered by involuntarily mimicking the perceived expressions, causing a "reactivation" of the corresponding mental state. Some studies suggest automatic facial mimicry during expression viewing; however, findings on the relationship between mimicry and emotion perception abilities are equivocal. The present study investigated individual differences in emotion perception and its relationship to facial muscle responses - recorded with electromyogram (EMG)--in response to emotional facial expressions. N° = °269 participants completed multiple tasks measuring face and emotion perception. EMG recordings were taken from a subsample (N° = °110) in an independent emotion classification task of short videos displaying six emotions. Confirmatory factor analyses of the m. corrugator supercilii in response to angry, happy, sad, and neutral expressions showed that individual differences in corrugator activity can be separated into a general response to all faces and an emotion-related response. Structural equation modeling revealed a substantial relationship between the emotion-related response and emotion perception ability, providing evidence for the role of facial muscle activation in emotion perception from an individual differences perspective.
尽管大多数人能够很好地识别面部表情所表达的情绪，但他们在这种能力上仍存在差异。根据具身模拟理论，对他人情绪的理解是通过不自觉地模仿所感知到的表情来促进的，这会导致相应心理状态的“重新激活”。一些研究表明，在观看表情时会出现自动的面部模仿；然而，关于模仿与情绪感知能力之间关系的研究结果并不明确。本研究调查了情绪感知方面的个体差异及其与面部肌肉反应（通过肌电图（EMG）记录）之间的关系，这些反应是对情绪化面部表情的反应。269名参与者完成了多项测量面部和情绪感知的任务。在一个独立的情绪分类任务中，从一个子样本（110名）中采集了EMG记录，该任务使用短视频展示六种情绪。对皱眉肌在愤怒、高兴、悲伤和中性表情下的验证性因素分析表明，皱眉肌活动的个体差异可分为对所有面部的一般反应和与情绪相关的反应。结构方程模型揭示了与情绪相关的反应和情绪感知能力之间的显著关系，从个体差异的角度为面部肌肉激活在情绪感知中的作用提供了证据。
