Facial Expression and Emotion

FACIAL EXPRESSION & EMOTION

Psychology

From the perspective of many psychologists, there is no set formal definition for emotion. We know that emotion is universal insofar as all humans experience and express emotion. There have been many studies, specifically over the past several decades that demonstrate that some emotions are expressed universally across time and culture. Just because there is not a universal definition for emotion, does not mean that there are not working definitions of what is emotion is, as a means to do the job in the meantime, until the global psychological field comes to a more overall agreement. On a very basic level, emotion is an affective change from a person's previous emotional state as a result of a huge spectrum of stimuli. There are a number of physical representations of emotion in the human body. Emotion occurs on a neurological level. Emotions show up in parts of the nervous system. Emotion can be classified or defined also as arousals to the nervous system as a result of external and internal stimulation. Emotion shows up in and is expressed through other parts of the body such as the voice, the musculoskeletal system, and in the face. The focus of the paper is the examination of facial expressions as a manifestation of emotion.

Emotions are changes in physiological arousal. The range of such changes can be subtle and can be extremely intense, as just about any person can attest to personally. Emotions can be slight, nonexistent, and overwhelming. Emotion has the capacity to motivate behaviors and behavioral responses from stimuli. People experience emotions as physiological changes that occur in response to an occurrence determine the experience of an emotion. In other words, we all feel emotions, yet we all feel them differently, although, there are commonalities in the emotions that all people feel. James and Darwin are early theorists upon emotion and their relation to facial expressions. [footnoteRef:0] James' theory was that emotions are the final result of a three part process: stimulus, response, and then the presence of the emotion. There are other theories that disprove older theories such as Darwin and James, contending that these theories missed an important aspect, which is context. [0: Russell, J.A. & Fernandez-Dols, J.M. (1997). Chapter 1 -- What does a facial expression mean? ]

Context, sometimes also referred to attribution,[footnoteRef:1] contributes a great deal to the interpretation and even the manifestation of an emotion. As will be presented later in the paper, context is key to understanding and codifying facial expressions and emotions. As aforementioned, there is a finite set of emotions that are universal, despite context.[footnoteRef:2] Yet, this number is quite small relative to the number of emotions and facial expressions that are a part of the full repertoire of the human face and human brain. Therefore, stimuli, context, response, and behavior will all be elements in consideration of the full paper. Emotions show up in the brain and even in the muscles. The muscles of focus of this paper are in the face. Facial expressions are contortions of the facial muscles in response to stimuli. The paper will theorize as to the degree to which facial expressions are connected to emotions. The paper will reference and analyze opinions that facial expressions are directly related to the expression of emotions and those who contend that the relation is not one-to-one and that facial expressions do not always "express" performing a variety of functions, some of which are related to felt or experienced emotions. [1: Adolphs, R. (2002). Recognizing Emotion From Facial Expressions: Psychological and Neurological Mechanisms. ] [2: Ekman, P. (1993). Facial expression and Emotion. ]

There are simple emotions. Emotions that are universal are fundamental and simple. There are also complex emotions. Complex emotions are those that vary the most depending on the context. There are emotions that are social and those that are non-social. Social emotions are those that are socially directed, driven, or derived. Nonsocial emotions are those that are experienced and expressed when the individual is alone (or feels alone) and is not thinking or emoting about other people. Social and nonsocial emotions are clearly more contextually based, whether there is an extreme presence or extreme absence of context. Simple emotions may also be called basic emotions, and again, these are universal, united in their meanings across culture and across context.

Taking a facial expression out of social context; eliminating the simultaneous speech, vocal clues, and body movements; freezing the expression in a still photograph; forcing attention to it; and asking for judgments by a detached uninvolved observer may remove many of the sources of cultural differences in the interpretation of facial expression. (Ekman et al., 1987, 717)

These universal emotions and expressions are presumed to be fixed within all of human culture and show up in some animals, too. Complex emotions can be emotions that are more refined and layered than the basic ones. Complex emotions are additionally considered as such because these may be the emotions that are culturally specific or unique to people for a variety of reasons, including brain chemistry, health history, and personality.

Moreover, just as the definition of emotion is up for debate or contention, so is the classification of emotions. The classification of emotions has not been agreed upon in a general sense. One of the greatest challenges to the classification of emotions is that the emotions of various cultures do not recognize the same emotions within their languages. International visitors and immigrants find have this experience when they visit to United States, for example. There are a number of emotions that exist in other cultures and other languages that do not exist in English or within an American social context; in this sense, universality of emotions as a theory shows limitations and stresses the importance of context in the classification of emotions.

…the study of the universality or relativity of emotional experience must go beyond issues of representation and labeling. Conversely, the case for universality has not yet been made either, because emotions have not been studied systematically and in a representative fashion across many different cultures. This is partly because it is difficult to study emotions even within a single culture. This problem is related to the manifold restrictions in terms of ethics, decorum, feasibility cost, and opportunity to study emotion, basically a private phenomenon, either in real life or in an experimental setting…it is close to impossible to study real emotions for many different subjects in different settings and in several different cultures…researchers actually suffer from a severe lack of normative data that could be used to seriously address the issue of emotion relativity or universality. (Scherer & Wallbott, 1994, 312)

In an effort to classify emotions and expressions of emotions such as facial expressions, psychologists, neuroscientists, and other professionals have created several models of emotion, such as circumplex, Plutchik's, PANA, and vector models.[footnoteRef:3] At this point in time, psychologists have yet to adequately answer questions such as "how many emotions exist?" And "how do we classify emotions?" Ekman[footnoteRef:4] made a famous list of basic emotions. Plutchik made a wheel of emotions. Parrot made a chart of classifications. There are a number of models floating around in the world, but there is a clear need for further research until some more generally accepted standards and definitions can be agreed upon by relevant professionals studying facial expressions and emotions. Though the lack of consensus may be confusing or frustrating, but the lack of consensus also clearly demonstrates a clear need for further research, experimentation, and innovation in this area. This lack or gap in the research and in this area validates the existence of this paper as well as the ideas the paper aims to explore and elucidate. [3: Browndyke, PhD, J.N. (2002). Neuropsychosocial Factors in Emotion Recognition: Facial Expressions. ] [4: Ekman, P. (1993). Facial expression and Emotion. ]

Just as interpretation of emotions and facial expressions is a learned behavior, expressing emotions is a learned behavior as well. People learn how to express many emotions. The basic and universal emotions are not learned. In this way, they are special. The universal emotions are instinctual, or even preprogrammed. More complex emotions and social emotions are learned. Emotions are a type of language, and all languages are learned, verbal and nonverbal, such as emotions and facial expressions. Learning to express emotions is important to wellness, just as learning to understand the emotions of the self and of others are important, too.

Facial expressions are a form of nonverbal communication and one of many forms of expression. If people are not taught how to express their emotions and importantly, to express their emotions in a variety of healthy way, there could be dire and longlasting consequences upon that person and upon those in the company of that person. People who are not taught to express their emotions and how to understand the expressions of emotions of others are in trouble. Unexpressed emotions are repressed. People who do not, with moderate accuracy, understand the expressions of emotions in others are lonely and have social anxieties or social disorders. In any case, the situation is not ideal for good health -- psychologically, physically, or otherwise. People can express emotions with their voices, with their bodies, with their faces, with the use of space, with words, etc. Arguably, humans have a great many means of emotional expression in the world today. Not everyone is aware of them, uses them, or uses them effectively; nonetheless they exist and people have access to them. They must be taught.

While the paper focuses upon facial expressions and emotions, the paper is additionally concerned with emotional intelligence generally. Technology and changes in perceptions or cultures are prominent aspects of the 21st century world. With the proliferation of information technology, media technology, and social media, there is a distinct decrease in general emotional intelligence. We have more ways of communicating with each other, but the general intelligence level of heavily mediated cultures is going down. There are more known cases of social anxieties, social disorders, and other disorders, such as autism, where difficulty recognizing, creating, and interpreting emotions, including facial expressions are becoming more commonly known issues. Therefore, researching into the connections between facial expressions and emotions has a contribution with respect to research and with respect to lived experienced and issues of the real world. The paper works in service to sharpen and increase emotional intelligence. The paper also seeks increased attention to and value put upon emotional intelligence. Gardner[footnoteRef:5] was one of the first to theorize and advocate for the theory of multiple intelligences, one of which is emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is a component to success professionally, personally, and otherwise. Within these greater societal contexts, the paper operates while maintaining a distinct focus of a narrower topic. [5: Gardner, H. (1989/2009). The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Available from: http://www.infed.org/thinkers/gardner.htm. ]

Facial expressions on a very basic level are the movements and contortions of the facial muscles. Facial expressions usually have an intention and an antecedent. The greatest meaning of facial expressions can come with consideration of these factors and other key ones such as context. Facial expressions, as the paper will discuss, serve more than one function -- they do more than just provide insight into the emotional state of the individual making the expression. Facial expressions are an example of nonverbal communication. The face is a tool that is quite diverse and specific with respect to communication, expression, and emotion. People often speak of knowing exactly what is on the mind of another person (usually close to them in some respect) by correctly identifying the facial expression of another person. People and animals communicate a lot through the specific conscious and unconscious manipulations of their faces. Thus, some facial expressions are voluntary and some are involuntary.[footnoteRef:6] The face is capable of a proliferation of emotions and yet there are only so many faces and expressions a person can make. Making facial expressions and understanding the various contexts within which they are appropriate are not are learned. For example, smiling is a skill that most infants learn from presumably the loving family members that surround the infant in its early days of life. [6: Dimberg, U., Thuberg, M., Elmehed, K. (2000). Unconscious Facial Reactions to Emotional Facial Expressions. ]

Facial expressions refer to movements of the mimetic musculature of the face. The vast majority of these muscles are innervated by the VIIth cranial nerve, emanating from the brainstem between the pons and medulla…The nerve includes a motor root that supplies somatic muscle fibers to the muscles of the face, scalp, and outer ear, enabling the muscle movements that comprise facial expressions. The sensory part of the nerve enables and augments some aspects of taste and sound…The facial nerve receives impulses from multiple brain areas. Lower face muscles are represented more fully in the motor cortex than the upper face, allowing for more voluntary and learned control of the lower face; this provides the fine controls of that facial region required for speech articulation. (Matsumoto & Ekman, nd, 1)

Every part of the face has a range of movements when making a facial expression. There are muscles in the forehead, cheeks, and chin, for example. There are muscles that control the eyebrows, around the eye sockets, including underneath the eyes. There can be movement within the eyes such as blood flood to the vessels in and around the eyes, pupil dilation even the rate of blinking can be a part of the facial expression as well as the direction of the eyes or the quality of eye contact. There are plenty of expressive muscles in around the mouth -- even a flaring of the nostrils contributes to the overall facial expression. When people shift from facial expression to another, that can be a form of expression as well. The relativity of the expressions in a series is a form of communication and emotional expression. Lack of facial expression is also a form of facial expression. Sometimes anger, fear, sarcasm and other emotions are expressed with a neutral face or lack of expression. What the facial expression means is heavily predicated on the antecedent of the expression and the context. The face is a unique and necessary palette from which we draw to express with specificity, precision, and in ways that only the face can produce.

Once innervated, the face is intricate and differentiated, making it one of the most complex signal systems available to humans. It includes over 40 structurally and independently of each other. The facial musculature is fairly unique. They include the only somatic muscles in the body attached on one side to bone and the other to skin; thus facial movements are specialized for expression. The face is also one of the few places in the body where some muscles are not attached to any bone at all (e.g., orbicularis oculi, the muscle surrounding the eyes; orbicularis oris, the muscle in the lips). (Matsumoto & Ekman, nd, 1 -- 2)

The reproduction of facial expressions is learned. The restriction and placement of facial expressions are also learned. Different cultures teach different facial expressions in different ways. These differences contribute to why there are so few universal emotions. The limitations and interpretations of facial expressions across cultures are called display rules.

Human social life requires expression regulation, because the non-regulated, unadulterated expression of emotion would lead to social chaos (Matsumoto, Yoo, Nakagawa et al., in press); that is, humans cannot just act automatically on their impulses whenever strong emotions are aroused if they are to live harmoniously with others. Fortunately, humans differ greatly from other animals in that they have been endowed with an elaborate set of neuroanatomical structures that allow the alteration of the linkage between the tendency to respond and the actual response (Levenson, 1999). With regard to facial expressions of emotion, these regulatory mechanisms are known as display rules (Ekman & Friesen, 1969). Display rules are learned early in life and dictate the management and modification of facial expressions depending on social circumstances. (Matsumoto & Ekman, nd, 8)

Consider for a moment if every person on Earth expressed their emotions fully and honestly, as they arose in the mind and body. Matsumoto & Ekman state that the world would become chaos, but would it, and if so, how long would it last? The world is already existing within a form of chaos where people cannot read or understand the facial expressions and emotions of others. There is a chaos and an illogic as to why we evolved into societies where the expression of emotion is limited, restricted, and forbidden at times. Psychologically speaking, people who express their emotions, as many of them as possible, in a timely fashion, are really healthy people. We live in a chaotic world where the thought of expressing emotions terrifies people because of the display rules propagated by their culture or society, and it terrifies people because that is a kind of freedom that is not afforded by many people. In essence, most people, over the course of their lives, and perhaps even over the course of their days, must mask, suppress, or otherwise edit their facial expressions to adhere to various sets of display rules with which they encounter. There are times when showing one's true emotions via authentic and directly connected facial expressions may further endanger someone or have an otherwise negative result. We live in a world when showing our true emotions via facial expressions can be at times, quite dangerous. There are a number of occupations that are predicated upon the faking, masking, or otherwise restricted facial expressions and emotional expressions, such as intelligence officers, undercover officers & agents of state and federal agencies. Display rules are an important element when factoring in the context of a facial expression so as to derive the meaning of it.

The meaning of facial expressions come from a context and a code.[footnoteRef:7] There must be a larger system of codes within which facial expressions are a part of and that facial expressions signify. As aforementioned, there are social expressions and nonsocial expressions. The forms of such expressions may take the same shape, but the meanings of those expressions, while similar in appearance, will differ in meaning.[footnoteRef:8] The meaning will vary depending on the context in which the expression occurred, the display rules, if a person is alone or with company, the personality of the person in question and any idiosycracies that person or the beholder of that person may have. More often than not, though, facial expressions are directly associated with the manifestation of emotions. [7: Essa, I.A. (1998). Coding, Analysis, Interpretation, and Recognition of Facial Expressions. ] [8: Scherer, K.R., & Wallbott, H.G. (1994). Evidence for universality and cultural variation of differential emotion response patterning. ]

Although facial expression encompasses a broad range of social signals, expressions of emotions constitute the aspect that is best understood. Neurobiologists and psychologists alike have conceptualized an emotion as a concerted, generally adaptive, phasic change in multiple physiological systems (including both somatic and neural components) in response to the value of a stimulus. An important issue, often overlooked, concerns the distinction between the emotional reaction (the physiological emotional response) and the feeling of the emotion (presumed in some theories to rely on a central representation of this physiological emotional response) (A. R. Damasio, 1999). (Adolphs, 2002, 24)

Emotions are physical. Facial expressions are physical. If thinking of facial expression only with respect to expression of emotion, then they are almost instantaneous of each other. There is no final conclusion as to whether the emotion is present before the facial expression or if the facial expression can influence the emotion. It seems that both situations are quite possible. There are times when people do not have the feelings "naturally" connected to specific emotions, but when they hold those expressions or repeat them, they begin to have those emotions. Emotions can change because of the facial expressions made. People can mask their true emotions within facial expressions contrary to how they truly feel, but there will be some aspect of their true emotional state that will slip and show itself at some point. Understand the meaning of facial expressions takes time, insofar as learning on the individual level. People who know each other well understand each other's facial expressions with above average accuracy than those who do not know those individuals as well. If we want to understand an individual's facial expressions, we need to get to know them. We can also study facial expressions on a wider, grander scale, as many kinds of experimental, psychosocial, and other kinds of psychologists do. They base a number of their theories upon research with individuals, and small groups, finding ways to accurately apply their observations and conclusions to cultures, countries, societies, and species, after all, humans are not the only primates that use and understand facial expressions.[footnoteRef:9] Meaning also comes from understanding the context and display rules in which the facial expression appears or exists. [9: Matsumoto, D., & Hwang, H.S. (2011). Reading facial expressions of emotion. ]

…many of these studies focus almost exclusively on the labeling of emotional experience and on the role emotion labels play in the semantic fields of a particular language. Differences in linguistic and semantic structure tend to be seen as indicative of different types of social representations and ways of experiencing emotions. (Scherer & Wallbott, 1994, 311 -- 312)

Again and again, from various parts of the world, authors stress the importance of one to one labeling of emotions based on facial expressions. True headway in this area will be made when there is greater support and advocacy for context when learning about facial expressions and emotions.[footnoteRef:10] There is a need to understand what facial expressions exist within a language and a culture. There is a need to understand the display rules exist in the language and in the culture. The range of facial expressions in the culture and in the display rules are necessary, too. One the one hand understanding facial expressions as they relate to emotions is simple and on the other hand, it takes a great deal of effort to understand them and derive meaning with accuracy.[footnoteRef:11] This becomes increasingly complicated in situations where people from extremely different cultures communicate and otherwise interact with each other. [10: Russell, J.A. (1994). Is there universal recognition of emotion from expression?: A review of cross-cultural studiers. ] [11: Haidt, J., & Keltner, D. (1999). Culture and facial expression: Open ended method find more faces and a gradient of universality. ]

The occurrence of multicultural learning, or business experiences is much more likely in the heavily mediated and interconnected world of the 21st century. The extent to which international business is conducted and international educational experiences are available & encouraged has increased a great deal, due in part to advancements in technology. The world has greater access to itself than previous eras in known human history. Therefore, the chances that the average person will interact with a person from a different language, culture, or country from theirs are higher than in previous decades and centuries. Not only are there many more ways to communicate & interact with people from countries different from one's own, but also there are reasons or opportunities to do so. Learning facial expressions and emotions can help people maintain healthy and authentic relationships with others. It can also help people learn how to read others so as to manipulate them for selfish, personal gain. The knowledge has great potential and many implications, but how the knowledge is used is up to the person who has it.

Charles Darwin, renowned for his studies of the Galapagos Islands[footnoteRef:12] and for his theories of evolution, additionally theorized regarding facial expressions, emotions, and their connections. As one may imagine, Darwin's ideas about facial expressions came from an evolutionary standpoint. He had three principles about facial expressions, their relation to emotion, and their evolution in the human face. [12: Darwin, C. (1835/2012) Field notes on the Galapagos Islands. Available from: http://darwin-online.org.uk/EditorialIntroductions/Chancellor_Keynes_Galapagos.html. ]

Darwin (1872/1998) outlined three reasons why particular facial movements may have become associated with specific emotions over the course of the history of the human species. The first principle-called the "principle of associated serviceable habits"-was that facial movements that are read as expressing emotion originally served direct adaptive functions in specific emotion-related situations…Darwin's (1872/1998) "principle of antithesis" was that movements "opposite" to these serviceable habits somehow became associated with contrasting feeling states…The principle of antithesis may deserve more attention than it has attracted since Darwin's time. Its promise lies in the notion that the signifiers of facial language may derive their meaning as part of a system of differences rather than by any direct reference to a signified object…Darwin's (1872/1998) third principle-"the principle of action of the nervous system"-proposes that some emotion-revealing facial information derives from symptoms of sensory excitation when "nerve force is generated in excess" (p. 29). In more contemporary terms, facial flushing, muscle tension, and so on may be relatively direct consequences of the physiological changes that are often either side effects or components of emotional states. (Parkinson, 2005, 279)

His first reason is that facial expressions are connected to emotions and expressions of emotions because we had to adapt to the changes in situations. Situations that are heavily emotionally related demanded another form of skill and another form of expression. Darwin argues indirectly that changes in environment and in human civilization in part facilitated the association of facial expressions and emotions. Darwin's idea of facial expressions as antithesis is quite interesting. It, in some ways, explains or illustrates the societies of today's world, wherein mostly the highly industrialized societies, direct connection or expression of emotion via facial expression is prohibited, frowned upon, or otherwise perceived with a negative connotation. In a way, he implies that facial expressions are lies. He states that with respect to the principle of antithesis, facial expressions are not related and do no express the emotional state, and the meaning of the expression comes from its differences from other expressions and not because of some direct link to an event, person, or object. His last principle describes emotions as mostly involuntary. Facial expressions are the involuntary expressions of a person's emotional state. He theorizes that they are also an expression on the surface of what is going on inside, such as a solar flare or an earthquake. They occur because of activity beneath the surface and the surface has no choice but to reflect some of that activity as a result of the activity itself. The plates of the Earth move and shift deep within the ground. On the surface, volcanoes may erupt, mountain ranges may form, and earthquakes make occur. What happens on the surface is a result of what happens far below. This is Darwin's third principle as to how facial expressions became connected with emotions. He was an early leader on this subject, though in subsequent centuries, his ideas have been disputed, overturned, or progressed further.

Mead (1934) extended Darwinian ideas of the functions of gestures by explicitly considering their social impact, seeing them as a primitive form of the kind of "significant symbol" that permits the distinctively human characteristics of self-conscious mental life…In short, postural and facial movements allow mutual coordination in an ongoing social act. To the extent that human facial movements are involved in more articulated action sequences, a similar meaning-manufacturing process may operate in interpersonal life. (Parkison, 2005, 281)

Chapter 2 -- Facial Expression of Emotion

There are facial expressions without emotion. Facial expressions can be faked. People may be smiling big in a photograph, but behind their eyes, there is no emotion. Criminologists and other related experts claim that people who are psychopathic and sociopathic do not feel emotions, or at least that the range of the emotions of which they are capable is severely limited. Most significantly, these antisocial personalities cannot feel empathy. They go through their lives making facial expressions to fit in, but not because those expressions are related to feelings and emotions they experience in the moment, like other more normative personalities.

How well can we tell what people are feeling simply by looking at their faces? Since the 1990s, the familiar view that faces directly express emotions has come under increasing scrutiny…Perhaps the most influential alternative is that faces are not surfaces on which private affective meanings are somehow made visible but rather tools for communicating social motives to specific addressees (Fridlund, 1994). According to this view, the idea of expression as an outpouring of something that was first inside is misleading…Emotion does not leak out into the interpersonal world. Instead, intentions are shared, transmitted, or coordinated between faces. (Parkinson, 2005, 278)

Lack of facial expressions can be a signal. It can be a signal that a person feels no emotions or significantly less emotions. It can be a signal that a person has some kind of emotional difficulty that he/she attempts to mask or hide from others. Lack of facial expressions does not necessarily mean there is a lack of emotion, but in excess, it is likely to indicate some kind of problem, emotional, psychological, or otherwise. It would require a great deal of control to have no facial expressions and may also require a severe trauma to shock a person to the point where their facial expressions diminish. The diminishing of facial expressions does not automatically mean the person has no feelings or experiences no emotions, but again, the lack does signal some sort of problem or difficulty that needs attention.

By the same token, it is possible for there to be emotions without accompanying facial expressions. People can feel emotions and not expressing them without using their faces, although most people express a great deal of emotion in their faces. Nonetheless, the possibility exists. There are some people that do not show extreme emotion in front of others. From that perspective, others may sense a person is emotionally tense, yet depending that person's personality and the display rules they adhere to, that person may opt to express emotions in other ways than through the face. Facial expressions as manifestations of emotions are quite likely to be voluntary, though it is possible to learn to control facial expressions and emotions. Monks in eastern cultures seek to do such things.[footnoteRef:13] There are religions and cultures that promote the expunging of emotion or to live with minimal emotion. For example, those who follow Buddhism, believe in the elimination of suffering from lived experience. A part of that strategy to eliminate suffering includes the minimization of emotions, including their expressions such as facial expressions. Therefore the long answer to whether there are any facial expressions without emotion and whether there are any emotions without facial expressions is that both are possible, but not normal. [13: The Urban Dharam Newsletter. (2004). Buddhism and Emotions. Available from: http://www.urbandharma.org/udnl2/nl022404.html. ]

Most people do not have control over their emotions to extreme extents. Even those who work to control their facial expressions to a great degree or live in contexts with austere display rules, there are some moments in life where the walls we put up come tumbling down. The short answer to the aforementioned questions is no. Facial expressions are connected to emotions, whether is a true reflection or a mask; the expression made is still connected to an emotion. Emotions show up quite often and with great speed as facial expressions. Both extremes are possible, but one extreme is more likely than the other, certainly. Discussion of such ideas makes one wonder if animals are capable of lying about or masking their true emotional states just as humans do (often).