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- SAN DIEGO (Reuters
Health) - The old adage that 'the eyes are the windows to the soul' may
be correct, according to a report presented during the American Academy
of Neurology's 52nd annual meeting in San Diego, California.
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- Dr. Calin Prodan, a neurology resident at the University
of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City, reported that when
listening to or looking at others, most people do not focus on the eyes,
brows and forehead--the area that displays true emotions.
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- Instead, most people focus on the lower part of the face--the
lips, nose and cheeks--when dealing with others. However, if the person's
true feelings are ``leaked'' to the observer, they are more likely to appear
on the upper face and could easily be missed, explained Prodan.
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- Previous studies have also shown that the lower portion
of the face is more active than the upper face when individuals engage
in deceitful social interactions.
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- ``Humans learn in early childhood to manipulate facial
emotions to make them appropriate to a given social situation, which, in
time, allows them to engage in deceitful behavior,'' said Prodan. ``For
example, a person who is angry with their superior may display a 'social'
smile rather than an angry scowl when asking for a raise.''
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- To better understand the brain's recognition and processing
of facial emotion, the researchers briefly showed 30 people line drawings
of a human face displaying different emotions on the upper versus lower
face, including happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise and neutral.
Participants viewed the drawings in either their right or left visual fields,
which offered clues to the side of the brain processing the information
and its ability to do so.
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- Participants most often identified the lower face emotion,
regardless of visual field. When subjects were instructed to focus on the
upper face, they did so best when the pictures were shown to their left
visual field (processed by the right side of the brain). However, most
continued to identify the lower facial emotion when viewing in their right
visual field (processed by the brain's left side).
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- ``Recognition of emotional displays on the lower face
appear to be processed by the brain's left hemisphere as part of the social--or
learned--emotional system, whereas emotional displays on the upper face
appear to be processed by the brain's right hemisphere as part of the primary--or
inborn--emotional system,'' said Prodan.
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- ``These findings help us to gain a better understanding
of the neurologic basis for effective communication, which will increase
a physician's ability to assess how diseases, such as stroke and dementia,
alter these functions,'' he added.
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- People may naturally focus on the lower face to aid in
speech comprehension during conversation, especially in noisy environments.
Social conventions may also play a role as many cultures consider it unacceptable
to look someone directly in the eye, because this may be interpreted as
aggressive or threatening behavior.
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- ``There is a natural learning curve starting in early
childhood for acquiring the skills to read facial displays of emotion,''
Prodan said.
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- ``We certainly can train ourselves to pay more attention
to upper facial displays, which can help us read a person's true emotional
state. However, this can have a downside because of social conventions.''
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