They control your face

Does reading words that describe negative or positive emotions affect our physical reactions? And why you should chew a pencil while watching commercials

Miriam Dishon-Berkowitz Galileo

When you look at people smiling there is a tendency to activate the facial muscles that control smiling, when you look at people with frowns there is a tendency to activate the facial muscles that control the expression of a sad face. This reflection probably helps in understanding the feelings of the other person as well as in understanding our own feelings.

In an article published in the journal Psychological Science, Francesco Poroni and Goon Seman raise the question of whether reading words that describe the expression of emotions (for example, "smile" or "cry") will be expressed in the reader's facial muscles. And more: Will reading different types of words - for example, verbs versus adjectives - be expressed differently in the facial muscles?

30 subjects in their twenties participated in the first experiment. In the experiment, the subjects watched a computer screen on which six verb nouns (for example, "to smile" or "to cry") and six noun adjectives (for example, "funny" or "sad") were randomly projected. They were also shown neutral words. The subjects watched the words while connected to electrodes whose function was to measure the electrical activity of the facial muscles (EMG).


It is written to smile - so smile

The first research question was how the different types of words affect the activity of the facial muscle responsible for smiling (the muscle that connects the cheek bone with the corners of the mouth). The analysis of the results of the experiment shows that when the subjects watched words describing positive emotions (such as "smile" or "funny") the activity in the facial muscles responsible for smiles increased, compared to situations where the subjects did not watch these words.

What's more: when the subjects watched verbs describing positive emotions ("smile"), the activity in the facial muscles responsible for smiles was higher compared to situations where the subjects watched adjectives describing positive emotions ("funny"). Furthermore, when the subjects watched verbs describing negative emotions (such as "cry"), the activity in the facial muscles responsible for smiles was completely suppressed, compared to situations where the subjects watched adjectives describing negative emotions, when the activity in the facial muscles responsible for smiles subsided, but was not completely suppressed.

What makes you frown?

The second question examined was the effect of the different types of words on the activity of the corrugator muscle in the face, which pulls the eyebrows down and towards the center of the forehead and is responsible for creating vertical wrinkles in the forehead. The muscle is called the "frown muscle".

Reading words that describe emotions results in appropriate activation of the facial muscles. That is - words also have a physical effect
The analysis of the results of the experiment shows that when the subjects watched verbs and adjectives describing negative emotions (such as "crying" or "frustrated"), the activity in the facial frown muscles increased compared to situations where the subjects watched verbs and adjectives describing positive emotions. Moreover, both when the subjects watched verbs describing positive emotions and when they watched nouns describing positive emotions, the activity in the facial frown muscles was suppressed.

From the analysis of the findings of the first experiment, it appears that the mere reading of words describing negative or positive emotions results in an appropriate activation of the reader's facial muscles. In other words, words have not only a symbolic but also a physical effect.

The purpose of the second experiment was to examine whether the words that express emotions that we read - but without being aware that we have read them - will have an effect on the judgments we make, and how this will be expressed in the activities of the facial muscles responsible for smiling and frowning.

Chewing a pencil prevents brainwashing

164 subjects participated in this experiment, of which 105 were women. The subjects who came to the laboratory were shown twenty-four short cartoons on a computer screen and they were asked to rate how much each movie made them laugh. Before the start of the screening of each film, without their knowledge, a word was projected on the screen for 30 milliseconds (that is, subliminally). The projected words were verbs or nouns describing an emotional state as in the first experiment. From a test done at the end of the experiment, it became clear that the subjects were not aware of the projected words.

Half of the subjects were asked to hold a pen in their mouth. It was hypothesized that this condition would result in unconscious word reading having no effect
Based on the findings of the first experiment, the researchers hypothesized that when the subjects unconsciously read verbs describing positive emotions ("smile"), this would affect their judgments, that is, the degree to which they would rate a movie as funnier. On the other hand, when the subjects unconsciously read verbs describing negative emotions ("cry"), they will rate the movie as less funny. In contrast, the researchers did not expect to get similar results for nouns because of their weaker effect found in the first experiment.

Half of the subjects were asked to hold a pen in their mouth during the experiment, thus suppressing the activity of some of their facial muscles. The researchers hypothesized that this condition of the facial muscles would result in unconscious word reading not affecting judgments (film rating) that the subjects would make afterwards.

From the analysis of the findings of the second experiment, it became clear, as expected, that the judgment of subjects whose facial muscle activity was free was influenced by the word's content and character: they did rate the movies as funnier after unconsciously reading verbs describing positive emotions compared to situations where they read verbs describing negative emotions; In contrast, no effect of nouns on the judgment was found, as expected.

In addition, in situations where the subjects' facial muscles were locked while holding the pen, no effect of unconsciously reading words was found on judgments that the subjects made after it.

In conclusion, from the findings of the two experiments it appears that exposure to verbs related to the expression of emotions results in an activity in the facial muscles similar to that which occurs following exposure in front of others who demonstrate the relevant emotions. Exposure to nouns results in lower intensity activity. Also, unconscious exposure to verbs that express emotions affects judgments that subjects make immediately after that exposure. On the other hand, when the subjects' facial muscle activity was not free, these effects were not found.

From the totality of the results of the experiment, it can be concluded that reading comprehension (for example, understanding the name of the verb "to smile") leads to a physical imitation of the read material. Furthermore: this imitation is probably necessary for a good understanding of the emotions described. However, not all language features have a similar effect (eg, verbs vs. nouns), and further research is needed to map them more precisely.

Dr. Miriam Dishon-Berkovitch is a psychologist and organizational and marketing consultant

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