Body and speech as expression of inner states

Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 1986

De Gruyter eBooks, 2013

This article provides a sketch of the theoretical framework of German Expression Psychology (GEP) and discusses the forms and functions of bodily and verbal types of communication that express inner states. Starting with a brief historical overview, we discuss general concepts of the German Expression Psychology framework, in particular with respect to the definition of expression, the relationship between expression and its subject, and the perception of expression. Within each of these areas special attention is given to the face, body and voice as indicators of inner states. Following this general overview of German Expression Psychology, we focus on the contribution of three selected authors, namely, Philipp Lersch, Paul Leyhausen and Egon Brunswik, who have been particularly influential in the field of German Expression Psychology. For Lersch, we consider the co-existential relationship between affect and expression, the detailed anatomical description of expressions, as well as the analysis of dynamic aspects of expressions. Leyhausen added an ethological perspective on expressions and perceptions. Here, we focus on the developmental aspects of expression and impression formation, and differentiate between phylogenetic and ontogenetic aspects of expression. Brunswik's Lens Model allows a separation between distal indicators on the part of the sender and proximal percepts on the part of the observer. Here, we discuss how such a model can be used to describe and analyze nonverbal communication on both the encoding and decoding side. Deriving from the presentation of all three authors, we outline the general relevance of German Expression Psychology for current research, specifically with respect to the definition and function of expressions and perceptions, and existing approaches to the study of verbal and nonverbal behavior. 35. Body and speech as expression of inner states 551

PROOFS FOR THE MEANING OF THE EXPRESSION Many of the results of the researches may lead towards a generality of the expressions. When we interpret the emotions experienced by other people, we tend to focus on the nonverbals, most important being the face. The facial expression is one of the most difficult to evaluate if there are not other appearances such as body position or movements of the body. THE IMPORTANCE OF PAUL EKMAN Paul Ekman researched the expression of the face while being in Papua New Guinee. Based on this studies, he diescovered the similarities between the emotions, and affirmed that there are several universal facial expressions. The unviersality of emotional expressions is being interpret in the social-biological categories. He used the envolvment of the facial muscles in participation of displaying the emotions, and the links with the automatic nervous system. During these researches, the participants were asked to employ several muscles to display the indicated emotion. When it was tryed to employ several muscles which were not accordingly to the given expression, then the automatic nervous system reacted by modyfying the temperature of the body and the heart rhythm. Also this helped to establish the quality of the emotions. To increase the changes of the autonomic nervous system, the participants were asked to imagine an event accordingly to the emotion provided. The information gathered indicated that the facial expression is essential and in fact is a basic factor which triggers the emotion and even influences the neurophysical conditins. Accordingly to those researches, there are 36 facial muscles involved form 80. These 36 muscles are engaged in most of the facial expressions. Most important of these muscles are frontal muscles, for frowning situated above the eyebrows, the muscles around the nose, around the eyes, the zygomatic muscles, those around the mouth, those of the quadrilateral lips, and those which are lowering the corners of the mouth. The expressive component allows to distinguish the emotions from other conditions but also to observe the difference between the emotions themselves.1 Accordingly to the above, the emotions may have proper indicators indifferent the culture. Accordingly to this, we may affirm that there are separate indicators of facial expressions such as fear, distress, anger, disgust and happyness. There are weak evidences regarding the versatility of the curiosity, contempt and shame. It must be emphasized that not always the experienced emotion has such distinct external displays, such as when recalling the events, the expression is rather weak, due to the processes of imagery and memory. The proper indicators of the given emotions does not appear alone. There are proper patterns that the indicator alone may reveal itself in many other emotions, but the model which consists in the configuration of the indicators has a proper specific. The phylogenetic development indicates the apparition and manifestation of different and even separated forms of facial expressions. Paul Ekman emphasized Darwin's statements regarding the development and functions of emotional expression and its versatility. Emotions are a part of our biological luggage. This form of expression which does not appears in the phylogenetic cycle, can't be treated as an universal form, proper to all humankind. Although there are signs regarding the outer influences of sepcific forms of facial expression, the basis is being provided mostly by the biological luggage.2

American Psychologist, 1993

Throughout the history, the interest in ability of recognizing diverse facial movements did not disappear. Face conveys many clues about the complexity of personal emotional state, however , as much as a face can reveal, it can also hide and cover. In this article I explore the argument that facial expressions are reliable indicators of an ongoing emotional experience, and that their precise recognition can be used as a tool for improvement of social interactions and observations of psychotherapeutic sessions. In the next pages I will address the contraversal question wheter some facial expression are universal, and examine the power of cultural influence on facial behaviour. Discussions about social influence on facial expressivness have remained a subject of disputes in many scientific fields. There is no doubt that accurate interpretation of facial behavior requires extensive knowledge in many interdisciplinary fields as psychology, neurobiology and cultural anthropology.

Non-verbal signs of personality: Communicative meanings of facial expressions, 2022

There is a lot of evidence that most people are capable of recognizing emotions by facial expressions. What information does a facial expression usually provide? Can emotions be shown without facial expressions? Can there be facial expressions without a corresponding emotional state? Are there individual facial expressions? The studies of various aspects of non-verbal communication show both similarities and differences in non-verbal behavior. It is argued that similarities are most evident at the individual level, when the focus is on the objective, formal features of behavior, while differences are more likely to be found when the analysis focuses on the relationship between individuals and interpersonal meanings of behavior. Despite the rapid expansion of research on non-verbal communication, most of it describes simple differences in the display of non-verbal signals. Although they differ in almost every other respect, most facial measurement methods focus on what is seen, on what the researcher can identify when seeing some facial movements. Most of the research methods applied are not sufficient for the study of this complex, multidimensional issue. Like all basic studies of communicative processes, proxemics is more about how than why, and more about structure than content. The article focuses on the question whether non-verbal behavior reflects cultural similarities or differences, and whether different levels of analysis allow to observe both cultural homogeneity and diversity inherent in most acts of non-verbal behavior. The authors consider the data of laboratory experiments on the relationship between emotions and adults’ facial expressions: some studies confirm the high consistency between fun and smiling, and from the low to moderate consistency between other positive emotions and smiling. The available evidence on surprise and disgust suggests that these emotions are accompanied by their ‘traditional’ facial expressions or even some components of such expressions only in a minority of cases. The American anthropologist, one of the founders of kinesics, Birdwhistell introduced this term for the complex study of facial expressions, poses, gait, and visible movements of arms and body. Birdwhistell argues that body language is determined by cultural environment rather than universal genetic programs. Birdwhistell defines kinesics as “the study of body-motion as related to the non-verbal aspects of interpersonal communication”. He argues that communication with body motion is systemic, socially learned and communicative unless proven otherwise. The article considers in detail the works and theories of Birdwhistell who often had to admit that some of his ideas were controversial. The authors conclude that Birdwhistell’s works have serious mistakes, and other researchers failed to develop his theory of kinesics. Thus, the authors consider the research in this field focusing on the so-called recognition of the communicative meanings of facial expressions.

A flurry of theoretical and empirical work concerning the production of and response to facial and vocal expressions has occurred in the past decade. That emotional expressions express emotions is a tautology but may not be a fact. Debates have centered on universality, the nature of emotion, and the link between emotions and expressions. Modern evolutionary theory is informing more models, emphasizing that expressions are directed at a receiver, that the interests of sender and receiver can conflict, that there are many determinants of sending an expression in addition to emotion, that expressions influence the receiver in a variety of ways, and that the receiver's response is more than simply decoding a message.

Emotional Expression, 2016

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2006

In this paper I discuss how expressive behavior relates to personality and psychopathology, integrating recent findins from my laboratory and the insights of Charles Darwin on this topic. In the first part of the paper I challenge the view, in part espoused by Darwin, that humans are equipped to convey only a limited number of emotions with nonverbal behavior. Our lab has documented displays for several emotions, including embarrassment, love, desire, compassion, gratitude, and awe, to name just a few states that previously were thought not to possess a distinct display. I then present an argument for how individual differences in emotion, although fleeting, shape the social environment. This argument focuses on the functions of nonverbal display: to provide information to others, to evoke responses, and to serve as incentives of preceding or ensuing social behavior. This reasoning sets the stage for the study of the relationships between personality, psychopathology, and expressive behavior, to which I turn in the final part of the paper. Here I show that basic personality traits (e.g., extraversion, agreeableness) and psychological disorders (e.g., externalizing disorder in children, autism) have expressive signatures that shape social interactions and environments in profound ways that might perpetuate and transmit the trait or disorder.

It is not surprising that a word signifying a place, or point, where people or bodies meet is interface -literally that which is between faces. The underlying notion is basically that the face is the portal to identity and soul (Kappas 1997). Expressions such as "losing face" (Gesichtsverlust in German) or "facing something" (faire face in French) indicate that there is more to face than meets the eye. Much of the cortex of the brain is visual and there seem to be several locations that have sensitivity to faces (Kanwisher, McDermott, and Chun 1997). Infants are drawn to face-like visual arrays basically from birth, and they react with facial mimicry only hours thereafter (Olk and Kappas 2011).