Impulsive and reflective mechanisms underlying the modulation of facial reactions to emotional facial expressions

Abstract:

When looking at a vis-á-vis’ emotional facial expression people usually react with congruent facial reactions. In current literature, such congruent reactions are usually described in terms of “facial mimicry”. But facial reactions can also be determined by emotional or strategic reactions. Results of our own research in the first funding period showed that congruent facial reactions to facial expressions can be modulated by numerous situational factors. The aim of the second funding period is now to determine the psychological and neuronal mechanisms underlying such modulations. We assume that social context factors influence impulsive and reflective processes at the same time which in turn leads to an increase or decrease of the strength of congruent facial reactions or even to the occurrence of incongruent reactions. With the suggested line of experiments we want to show that impulsive mechanisms are mainly underlying the modulation of congruent reactions whereas incongruent reactions are primarily mediated by reflective processes (e.g. reasoning and strategic processes). Additionally, the neuronal structures and processes behind these mechanisms shall be revealed. The inclusion of neuropsychological methods is expected to allow conclusions regarding social psychological theories of the contextual modulation of nonverbal behavior.