engleski

Interactive effects of tears and muscular facial expressions

Emotional tearing is an expressive behavior that accompanies different self-reported emotional states, ranging from sadness to joy. Emotional tears are proposed to have evolved as a means of communication: their function is to convey distress, helplessness, submission, and friendly intentions of the crier, which eventually results in elicitation of pro-social responses of observers. A still unanswered question is how exactly tears interact with muscular facial expressions in order to convey such information. Do tears promote the perception of emotional intensity and sincerity of expression in general or do they convey more specific information? To answer these questions, we exposed sixty participants to pictures of individuals expressing six basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise) or having a neutral expression, with or without artificially added tears. Additionally, we presented participants with a comparable group of artificially created faces (avatars). Participants' task was to report which of the seven emotional expressions they perceived, and to rate the intensity and sincerity of the expressed emotion, as well as the empathy felt towards the expressing individual. Results showed that tearful faces were more often perceived as sad and angry, and less often as disgusted and surprised. Interestingly, tears added more intensity to correctly recognized expressions of not just sadness but also of anger and fear. Tears also facilitated perception of sincerity and empathy felt towards models expressing sadness and anger, while they decreased perceptions of sincerity of disgust. These results are discussed in the context of the tears' ability to function as an attachment- related signal of distress, designed by evolution to convey distress and submission, and to promote social bonding.

crying ; tears, facial expression ; emotion

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