1. Social context influence emotional language comprehension
through facial muscle activity
Ericka Schaeffer & David Havas, Ph.D. University of Wisconsin–Whitewater, Department of Psychology h
BACKGROUND
Facial Muscle Activity Reflects Social Context
Facial mimicry occurs automatically and unconsciously (1)
Happy & angry faces were presented without conscious recognition of expression using backward masking (1)
Emotional Language Comprehension
One’s own facial expressions can affect comprehension of emotional language (2)
Feedback from the facial muscles may be the cause (3)
CURRENT STUDY
Pilot study found that unconscious exposure to happy & angry facial expressions affects emotional sentence comprehension times
Current study included EMG to detect facial muscle activity
Does unconscious facial mimicry affect emotional language comprehension?
HYPOTHESES
Greater smile muscle activity following happy (vs. angry) faces, and greater (or equal) frown muscle activity following angry (vs. happy) faces
Faster RTs for pleasant sentences following happy (vs. angry) faces, and faster RTs for unpleasant sentences following angry (vs. happy) faces
METHOD
Subjects
57 UWW undergraduate students
Backward Masking Procedure
”Target” happy or angry facial expression for 30 ms
”Masking" neutral facial expression for 1000 ms
Pleasant or unpleasant sentence
Stimuli
4 Angry, 4 happy, and 12 neutral faces
24 pleasant and 24 unpleasant sentences from (1)
Procedure
4 blocks of 12 trials with same target + neutral masks
Each block = ½ pleasant & ½ unpleasant sentences
random order
EMG will be monitoring smile and frown muscles
Participants’ Task
Judge the sentence sensibility as quickly and accurately as possible
IMPLICATIONS
Pattern in EMG consistent with Hypothesis 1 and potential replication of (1)
Provides crucial mechanism for Hypothesis 2
Implications for understanding language-emotion interaction and influence of social interactions in cognition
NEXT STEPS
Evaluate statistical reliability in EMG data
Evaluate a covariate variable (heart-rate variability/vagal tone) recorded for some subjects
Analyze 2nd independent variable (sentence reading times: Hypothesis 2)
REFERENCES
Dimberg, Thunberg, & Elmehed (2000). Unconscious facial reactions to emotional facial expressions. Psychol. Sci., 11, 86– 89.
Havas, Glenberg, & Rinck (2007). Emotion simulation in language comprehension. Psychon. Bull. & Rev., 14,
Havas & Matheson (2013). The functional role of the periphery in emotional language comprehension. Frontiers in Psych., 4, 1-16.
PRELIMINARY EMG RESULTS
Facial muscle activity following Angry targets
Facial muscle activity following Happy targets