- WASHINGTON (ANI) -- Take
notice the next time if someone is peering directly into you or looking
away from you, while expressing anger or fear at you. A study conducted
by a group of Dartmouth researchers and published in the June 6 edition
of Science reveals that this has an effect on how the brain reads those
expressions.
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- The study observed that the direction in which another
person locks his vision with yours, shapes up the fact how your brain reacts
to the fear and anger stimulus, exhibited by that soul. This takes place
especially in the amygdala, the hub controlling emotions, detecting potential
threats and also directing emotional behavior.
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- The research also opined that when viewing pictures of
angry expressions, people exhibit more amygdala activity when the angry
person in the picture is looking away. And when one is seeing fearful expressions,
amygdala is more active when there is direct eye contact.
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- This study is the first of its sorts to demonstrate that
gaze direction is an important signal determining the manner in which we
perceive facial expressions.
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- "Some people may be surprised to learn that the
amygdala actually responded most when threat cues were ambiguous, indicating
that the amygdala perceives heightened threat in uncertainty, or that the
amygdala has to work harder to make sense of the ambiguity surrounding
the threat," said Reginald Adams, lead author of the study.
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- Participants were made to view photographs of other people
displaying anger and fear expressions and the eyes in the photographs were
shifted to change the direction of the gaze. The participants' brain activity
was captured with functional magnetic resonance imaging.
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- The direction of gaze is important in determining whether
the impending threat is coming from the person presenting the expression,
or from another dangerous element in the environment.
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