Palagi Elisabetta, Scopa Chiara
Natural History Museum, University of Pisa, Via Roma 79, 56011, Calci, Pisa, Italy.
Learn Behav. 2017 Dec;45(4):378-389. doi: 10.3758/s13420-017-0278-x.
Visual signals convey emotions and intentions between individuals. Darwin underlined that human facial expressions represent a shared heritage between our species and many other social mammals. Social play is a fertile field to examine the role and the potential communicative function of facial expressions. The relaxed open-mouth (or play face) is a context-specific playful expression, which is widespread in human and non-human mammals. Here, we focus on playful communication by applying Tinbergen's four areas of inquiry: proximate causation, ontogeny, function, and evolution. First of all we explore mimicry by focusing on its neural substrates and factors of modulation within playful and non-playful context (proximate causation). Play face is one of the earliest facial expressions to appear and be mimicked in neonates. The motor resonance between infants and their caregivers is essential later in life when individuals begin to engage in increasingly complex social interactions, including play (ontogeny). The success of a playful session can be evaluated by its duration in time. Mirroring facial expressions prolongs the session by favoring individuals to fine-tune their own motor sequences accordingly (function). Finally, through a comparative approach we also demonstrate that the elements constituting play communication and mimicry are sensitive to the quality of interindividual relationships of a species, thus reflecting the nature of its social network and style (evolution). In conclusion, our goal is to integrate Tinbergen's four areas of ethological inquiry to provide a broader framework regarding the importance of communication and mimicry in the play domain of humans and other social mammals.
视觉信号在个体之间传递情感和意图。达尔文强调，人类面部表情代表了我们这个物种与许多其他群居哺乳动物之间的共同遗产。社交游戏是研究面部表情的作用和潜在交流功能的一个丰富领域。放松的张嘴表情（或游戏脸）是一种特定情境下的嬉戏表情，在人类和非人类哺乳动物中都很普遍。在这里，我们通过应用廷贝亨的四个研究领域来关注嬉戏交流：近因、个体发生、功能和进化。首先，我们通过关注其神经基础以及嬉戏和非嬉戏情境中的调节因素来探索模仿行为（近因）。游戏脸是新生儿最早出现并被模仿的面部表情之一。婴儿与其照顾者之间的动作共鸣在个体后来开始参与越来越复杂的社交互动（包括游戏）时至关重要（个体发生）。一场嬉戏活动的成功可以通过其持续时间来评估。模仿面部表情通过促使个体相应地微调自己的动作序列来延长活动时间（功能）。最后，通过比较研究方法，我们还证明，构成游戏交流和模仿行为的元素对一个物种个体间关系的质量很敏感，从而反映出其社交网络的性质和风格（进化）。总之，我们的目标是整合廷贝亨的四个动物行为学研究领域，以提供一个更广泛的框架，说明交流和模仿在人类和其他群居哺乳动物的游戏领域中的重要性。
