Department of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada.
VizirLabs Consulting, Chelsea, Québec, Canada.
PLoS One. 2020 Dec 28;15(12):e0243860. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0243860. eCollection 2020.
Engaging in facial emotion mimicry during social interactions encourages empathy and functions as a catalyst for interpersonal bonding. Decreased reflexive mirroring of facial expressions has been observed in individuals with different non-psychotic disorders, relative to healthy controls. Given reports of interpersonal relationship difficulties experienced by those who engage in non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), it is of interest to explore facial emotion mimicry in individuals with a history of this behaviour (HNSSI). Among other things, this will enable us to better understand their emotion regulation and social interaction challenges. Surface facial electromyography (fEMG) was used to record the reflexive facial mimicry of 30 HNSSI and 30 controls while they passively observed a series of dynamic facial stimuli showing various facial expressions of emotion. Beginning with a neutral expression, the stimuli quickly morphed to one of 6 prototypic emotional expressions (anger, fear, surprise, disgust, happiness, or sadness). Mimicry was assessed by affixing surface electrodes to facial muscles known to exhibit a high degree of electrical activity in response to positive and negative emotions: the corrugator supercilii and the zygomaticus major. HNSSI participants, relative to controls, exhibited significantly less electrical activity in the corrugator muscle in response to viewing angry stimuli, and significantly less of an expected relaxation in muscle activity in response to viewing happy stimuli. Mirroring these results, greater endorsement of social influence as a motivator for engaging in NSSI was associated with less mimicry, and greater endorsement of emotion regulation as a motivator was associated with greater incongruent muscle response when viewing happy faces. These findings lend support to the theory that social interaction difficulties in HNSSI might be related to implicit violations of expected social rules exhibited through facial mimicry nonconformity.
在社交互动中进行面部情绪模仿鼓励同理心，并作为人际联系的催化剂。与健康对照组相比，患有不同非精神病性障碍的个体对面部表情的反射性镜像减少。鉴于有报道称非自杀性自我伤害（NSSI）者存在人际关系困难，因此探索有 NSSI 病史者（HNSSI）的面部情绪模仿很有意义。除其他外，这将使我们能够更好地理解他们的情绪调节和社交互动挑战。表面肌电图（fEMG）用于记录 30 名 HNSSI 和 30 名对照者在被动观察一系列动态面部刺激物时的反射性面部模仿，这些刺激物显示出各种情绪的面部表情。从中性表情开始，刺激物迅速变成 6 种原型情绪表情（愤怒、恐惧、惊讶、厌恶、快乐或悲伤）之一。通过将表面电极贴在已知对面部表情积极和消极情绪反应具有高度电活性的面部肌肉上来评估模仿：皱眉肌和颧大肌。与对照组相比，HNSSI 参与者在观看愤怒刺激时，皱眉肌的电活动明显减少，在观看快乐刺激时，肌肉活动的预期放松也明显减少。这些结果反映出，将社会影响作为进行 NSSI 的动机的更大认可与模仿减少有关，而将情绪调节作为动机的更大认可与观看快乐面孔时的肌肉反应不一致性增加有关。这些发现支持了这样一种理论，即 HNSSI 中的社交互动困难可能与通过面部模仿不规范表现出的隐含违反预期社会规则有关。
