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Functionally distinct smiles elicit different physiological responses in an evaluative context

When people are being evaluated, their whole body responds. Verbal feedback causes robust activation in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. What about nonverbal evaluative feedback? Recent discoveries about the social functions of facial expression have documented three morphologically di...

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Autores principales: Martin, Jared D., Abercrombie, Heather C., Gilboa-Schechtman, Eva, Niedenthal, Paula M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5832797/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29497068
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-21536-1
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author Martin, Jared D.
Abercrombie, Heather C.
Gilboa-Schechtman, Eva
Niedenthal, Paula M.
author_facet Martin, Jared D.
Abercrombie, Heather C.
Gilboa-Schechtman, Eva
Niedenthal, Paula M.
author_sort Martin, Jared D.
collection PubMed
description When people are being evaluated, their whole body responds. Verbal feedback causes robust activation in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. What about nonverbal evaluative feedback? Recent discoveries about the social functions of facial expression have documented three morphologically distinct smiles, which serve the functions of reinforcement, social smoothing, and social challenge. In the present study, participants saw instances of one of three smile types from an evaluator during a modified social stress test. We find evidence in support of the claim that functionally different smiles are sufficient to augment or dampen HPA axis activity. We also find that responses to the meanings of smiles as evaluative feedback are more differentiated in individuals with higher baseline high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV), which is associated with facial expression recognition accuracy. The differentiation is especially evident in response to smiles that are more ambiguous in context. Findings suggest that facial expressions have deep physiological implications and that smiles regulate the social world in a highly nuanced fashion.
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spelling pubmed-58327972018-03-05 Functionally distinct smiles elicit different physiological responses in an evaluative context Martin, Jared D. Abercrombie, Heather C. Gilboa-Schechtman, Eva Niedenthal, Paula M. Sci Rep Article When people are being evaluated, their whole body responds. Verbal feedback causes robust activation in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. What about nonverbal evaluative feedback? Recent discoveries about the social functions of facial expression have documented three morphologically distinct smiles, which serve the functions of reinforcement, social smoothing, and social challenge. In the present study, participants saw instances of one of three smile types from an evaluator during a modified social stress test. We find evidence in support of the claim that functionally different smiles are sufficient to augment or dampen HPA axis activity. We also find that responses to the meanings of smiles as evaluative feedback are more differentiated in individuals with higher baseline high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV), which is associated with facial expression recognition accuracy. The differentiation is especially evident in response to smiles that are more ambiguous in context. Findings suggest that facial expressions have deep physiological implications and that smiles regulate the social world in a highly nuanced fashion. Nature Publishing Group UK 2018-03-01 /pmc/articles/PMC5832797/ /pubmed/29497068 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-21536-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Martin, Jared D.
Abercrombie, Heather C.
Gilboa-Schechtman, Eva
Niedenthal, Paula M.
Functionally distinct smiles elicit different physiological responses in an evaluative context
title Functionally distinct smiles elicit different physiological responses in an evaluative context
title_full Functionally distinct smiles elicit different physiological responses in an evaluative context
title_fullStr Functionally distinct smiles elicit different physiological responses in an evaluative context
title_full_unstemmed Functionally distinct smiles elicit different physiological responses in an evaluative context
title_short Functionally distinct smiles elicit different physiological responses in an evaluative context
title_sort functionally distinct smiles elicit different physiological responses in an evaluative context
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5832797/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29497068
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-21536-1
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