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facial expression
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motions or positions of subcutaneous human face muscles, conveying emotional state
A facial expression is the movement or positioning of muscles beneath the skin of your face, which communicates what you're feeling emotionally. This matters because facial expressions allow people to understand each other's emotions quickly and naturally, making them essential for human communication and social interaction.
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Research
28,928 papers- Facial expression recognition: A meta-analytic review of theoretical models and neuroimaging evidence.ReviewNeuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2021Xu P, Peng S, Luo YJ et al.DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.05.023
- Facial expression and emotion.ReviewThe American psychologist · 1993Ekman PDOI: 10.1037//0003-066x.48.4.384
- Eyebrows, Facial Expression, and "Poem to the Eyebrow (Blason du Sourcil)".ReviewThe Journal of craniofacial surgery · 2021Hwang KDOI: 10.1097/SCS.0000000000007776
- Sensorimotor regulation of facial expression - An untouched frontier.ReviewNeuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2024Bress KS, Cascio CJDOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105684
- The facial expression of pain in humans considered from a social perspective.ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Kappesser JDOI: 10.1098/rstb.2019.0284
- On the Role of Sensorimotor Experience in Facial Expression Perception.ReviewJournal of cognitive neuroscience · 2024Japee SDOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_02148
- The Importance and Psychology of Facial Expression.ReviewOtolaryngologic clinics of North America · 2018Ishii LE, Nellis JC, Boahene KD et al.DOI: 10.1016/j.otc.2018.07.001
- Measuring facial expression of emotion.ReviewDialogues in clinical neuroscience · 2015Wolf KDOI: 10.31887/DCNS.2015.17.4/kwolf
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Article
Facial expression is the motion and positioning of the muscles beneath the skin of the face. These movements convey the emotional state of an individual to observers and are a form of nonverbal communication. They are a primary means of conveying social information between humans, but they also occur in most other mammals and some other animal species.
Humans can adopt a facial expression voluntarily or involuntarily, and the neural mechanisms responsible for controlling the expression differ in each case. Voluntary facial expressions are often socially conditioned and follow a cortical route in the brain. Conversely, involuntary facial expressions are believed to be innate and follow a subcortical route in the brain. Facial recognition can be an emotional experience for the brain and the amygdala is highly involved in the recognition process.