The facial expressions we make to show or hide our emotions are hardwired into our brains rather than learned during life, a study has concluded. Blind and sighted athletes made the same expressions when they won and lost, US researchers found.
This, the study reported in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology study suggests, meant the expressions were not picked up by watching others. The researchers believe they could be remnants of evolutionary history. However, the study at San Francisco State University provides some of the strongest evidence yet to support it.
BBC. (Thanks Katherine)
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I agree, and we do learn facial expressions which are supposed to resemble those that are hardwired but can’t work when the true emotion isn’t in anymore …
Models don’t do anything else work wise, and we all fake a lot just to be polite or just not to stand out of the crowd or to hide our true inner emotion.
blah blah blah methinks?
Haven’t you done this subject already!
Chocs awaaaaaayyyy xXx
omg this piccie looks like a scene from Alfred hitchkock `Birds …
I think its a bit much this study taking all the credit without a mention of Paul Ekman and all the research he did in the 60′s and 70′s that showed exactly this, as well as documenting all emotionally linked muscle movements in the face and developing the Facial Action Coding System…
“Blind and sighted athletes made the same expressions when they won and lost, US researchers found.”
I’m not that sure if that can be considered proof for anything. Unless those blind athletes were raised in an environment where everyone else was also blind, I think it is quite possible that they learned to express themselves the “right way” -for efficient communication- based on other people’s reactions to their facial expressions. Pretty much like learning a language.
It could be possible that how the first words emerged may bear similarities to how agreement on facial expressions emerged. But to be honest I think that’s pretty unlikely since basic expressions don’t seem to be too different among wild animals… you never know though… What I don’t find too unlikely is that it could be a mixture of both; instincts/genes + learned communication.
Just speculating…
Sadun, the evidence is actually more convincing from the studies of blind babies.
http://brucemhood.wordpress.com/2008/08/26/blind-judo-worship-and-smiling-babies/