The Duchenne smile: emotional expression and brain physiology. II

Abstract

Facial expression, EEG, and self-report of subjective emotional experience were recorded while subjects individually watched both pleasant and unpleasant films. Smiling in which the muscle that orbits the eye is active in addition to the muscle that pulls the lip corners up (the Duchenne smile) was compared with other smiling in which the muscle orbiting the eye was not active. As predicted, the Duchenne smile was related to enjoyment in terms of occurring more often during the pleasant than the unpleasant films, in measures of cerebral asymmetry, and in relation to subjective reports of positive emotions, and other smiling was not.