Simultaneous recording of EEG and facial muscle reactions during spontaneous emotional mimicry

Achaibou, Amal; Pourtois, Gilles; Schwartz, Sophie; Vuilleumier, Patrik

doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2007.10.019

Scientific article

English

Simultaneous recording of EEG and facial muscle reactions during spontaneous emotional mimicry

Contributors

Achaibou, Amal; Pourtois, Gilles; Schwartz, Sophie

; Vuilleumier, Patrik

Published in

Neuropsychologia, vol. 46, no. 4, p. 1104-1113

Publication date

2008

Abstract

The perception of emotional facial expressions induces covert imitation in emotion-specific muscles of the perceiver's face. Neural processes involved in these spontaneous facial reactions remain largely unknown. Here we concurrently recorded EEG and facial EMG in 15 participants watching short movie clips displaying either happy or angry facial expressions. EMG activity was recorded for the zygomaticus major (ZM) that elevates the lips during a smile, and the corrugator supercillii (CS) that knits the eyebrows during a frown. We found increased EMG activity of CS in response to angry expressions, and enhanced EMG activity of ZM for happy expressions, replicating earlier EMG studies. More importantly, we found that the amplitude of an early visual evoked potential (right P1) was larger when ZM activity to happy faces was high, and when CS activity to angry faces was high, as compared to when muscle reactions were low. Conversely, the amplitude of right N170 component was smaller when the intensity of facial imitation was high. These combined EEG-EMG results suggest that early visual processing of face expression may determine the magnitude of subsequent facial imitation, with dissociable effects for P1 and N170. These findings are discussed against the classical dual-route model of face recognition.

Keywords

Adult
Analysis of Variance
Brain/physiology
Brain Mapping
Electroencephalography
Electromyography/methods
Emotions/physiology
Facial Expression
Facial Muscles/physiology
Female
Functional Laterality
Humans
Male
Pattern Recognition Visual/physiology
Personality
Photic Stimulation
Questionnaires
Reaction Time

UNIGE affiliation entities

UNIGE research groups

Citation (ISO format)

ACHAIBOU, Amal et al. Simultaneous recording of EEG and facial muscle reactions during spontaneous emotional mimicry. In: Neuropsychologia, 2008, vol. 46, n° 4, p. 1104–1113. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2007.10.019

Article (Accepted version)

Identifiers

PID : unige:799
DOI : 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2007.10.019
PMID : 18068737

Journal ISSN

0028-3932

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Creation

13/02/2009 12:21:00

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13/02/2009 12:21:00

Update

14/03/2023 15:00:32

Status update

14/03/2023 15:00:32

Last indexation

08/11/2024 11:11:35

Simultaneous recording of EEG and facial muscle reactions during spontaneous emotional mimicry

Contributors

Published in

Publication date

Abstract

Keywords

UNIGE affiliation entities

UNIGE research groups

Citation (ISO format)

Main files (1)

Identifiers

Journal ISSN

Technical informations

Creation

First validation

Update

Status update

Last indexation