Supervisors info:
Επικούρος καθηγητής Κωσταντίνος Πόταγας, Επίκουρος Καθηγητής Ιωάννης Ζαλώνης, Επίκουρος Καθηγητής Σωκράτης Παπαγεωργίου
Summary:
Facial expression is a substantial non-verbal communication channel in humans
and it is highly important in everyday social interaction. Darwin referred to
facial expression as a core mechanism which contributed to the natural
selection and evolution of species. The purpose of this experimental work is
the study of spontaneous emotional facial expressions and the extraction of
normative data using video clips as elicitors.
From a clinical perspective, we observe patients who display flat affect with
detrimentally diminished facial expression in several neurological and
psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia (Berenbaum et al., 1992; Kring et
al., 1993) or Parkinson's disease and certain dementias (Seidl et al., 2012;
Simons et al., 2003).
However, there is wide fluctuation of facial expressiveness in the normal
population. People do not react in the same way and intensity to common
stimuli. The question is therefore whether emotional expressiveness can be
objectively measured and assessed: “How expressive someone is?” Innumerable
studies have investigated the perception of facial expression but only few
have explored its production; both methodological difficulties and lack of
reliable measurement tools seem to be responsible for this.
By the 1970s, with the pioneer work of Ekman & Friesen, a new tool was made
available for measuring facial expressiveness, the Facial Action Coding System
(FACS). The use of this system was however restricted, mainly because a
certification of use was required and because considerable amount of time was
needed in order to analyze just a few minutes of video tape.
During the late 20th and the first years of the 21st century, computer
technology and robotics focused on the analysis and decoding of facial
expressions in order to improve human-computer interaction. A result of this
progress was the development of commercially available software, based on the
principles of FACS, for the analysis of emotional facial expressions in real
time and with objective quantitative measurements.
We used the FaceReader™ in an attempt to collect normative data, using video
tapes in a normal Greek population. We studied 86 persons, divided into two age
groups, 20-30 years and 50-60 years, matched for gender. Measurements concerned
subjective experience of participants for each video tape and their facial
expression during the projection.
Results showed that it is possible to elicit spontaneous facial expressions of
emotion and a variation in the emotions elicited depending on the video
displayed. Happiness seems to be the most easily elicited expression, in
contrast to the expression of surprise and fear. Duration of the expression of
surprise is probably very short and consequently difficult to be measured.
Expression of fear is probably difficult to elicit in an experimental setting,
partly because an intense fear – enough to be measured – would be unethical to
elicit.
In certain videos, expressiveness was common to men and women, and independent
of age, while in some others there were significant gender differences.
This study might be a proof that emotional expressions can be experimentally
elicited, together with the acquisition of normative data for given video tapes
eliciting certain emotional expressions. The latter would contribute to the
evaluation of individual expressiveness, with possible applications to research
and clinical practice.
Keywords:
Facial expression, Face reader, Spontaneous expression, Emotion elicitation, Normative data
