Facial Expression

FACIAL EXPRESSION (from Greek mimeomai - I imitate), the movement of musculature in coordinated complexes responding to diverse mental states. Facial expression belongs to the so-called expressive movements (see) and is one of the links in the chain of various forms and methods of communication among representatives of the animal world. As Darwin pointed out, facial expression is a rudiment of movements that once had a purposeful character, but gradually lost their initial significance, giving way to speech (oral and graphic). However, facial movements have not disappeared completely and, remaining companions of speech, reinforce and sometimes replace this highest form of communication (gesture language, facial expression). Facial expression is a very valuable material in the analysis of personality in its normal and pathological states. The poverty of facial expression in its various degrees determines the general scarcity of the intellectual fund and emotional-volitional sphere down to various forms of dementia. On the contrary, the brilliance and diversity of facial expression testify to high personal giftedness. Although all muscles and all parts of the body generally take part in facial expression, the main facial organ is the face. Every mental experience - grief, joy, fright, pain, fatigue, tension of attention - is reflected in the facial expression (figures 1-6); the entire wealth of inner experiences can be conveyed only by it. Facial expression plays a major role in early childhood, where all internal sensations are reflected as in a mirror. Although the word is the main means of human communication and an instrument of judgment and conclusion, the word without facial expression is dead. The word conveys only individual concepts, whereas facial expression conveys the state of the psyche in its entirety, in its dynamics and fluidity. The rapidity of the change in the facial mimic play, corresponding to the play of the subtlest emotional experiences, is so great that a photograph (and even cinema) cannot reflect it; therefore, only an artist, having chosen typical moments from the complex mental play of the face, can give an actual

MIMIC...

portrait reflecting his emotional experiences as well. Being largely involuntary, facial expression is the best "mirror of the soul," sometimes its "traitor," and often plays an important role in the correct understanding of another person's psyche. In addition, the basic forms of facial movements are common to all peoples, international, and therefore understandable to everyone. True, facial movements in the broad sense of the word (expressive movements) are also subject to our will, and these movements are no longer entirely international, in a certain part of them conventional (class and tribal ways of "holding oneself"); true, facial expression can also be artificial, and bourgeois culture sees in the ability to control the expression of one's face even one of the highest signs of culture, but nevertheless, the prolonged maintenance of an artificial facial expression is extremely difficult, and the study of facial expression is a very important means of cognizing the psyche. The study of facial movements has long been pursued by artists (Leonardo da Vinci), actors, doctors, starting from Hippocrates and up to our time (Duchenne, H. Virchow, Krukenberg, Sommer, Sikorsky, Kirchhoff), and psychologists (Wundt, Klages). Duchenne as early as 1862 carried out extensive research, striving to find the exact anatomical foundations of each facial movement of the face. Of great interest is also the work of Hersing on the cause of eye expressiveness. Most other works aimed at the most accurate possible description of individual facial movements in connection with the mental experiences and diseases denoted by them, striving to use the features of facial expression as a subtle diagnostic sign of somatic and mental diseases. Despite all the facial mobility of the face, individual people nevertheless possess certain stable facial features that are transmitted by heredity and determine a subtle family resemblance. This similarity rests not only on the inheritance of the muscle type, but also on the features of neuromuscular dynamics. In connection with the modern doctrine of the relationship between constitution and character types, the study of stable individual types of facial expression acquires special interest. However, when studying these types, as well as when studying the heredity of other traits, one must not forget that the features of a stable facial expression also reflect frequently recurring emotional impacts of the environment, profession, etc.; for example, the types of an intelligent, arrogant face, etc., are known; it is known that spouses living together for a long time begin to resemble each other (imitation). On the other hand, of great interest is the observation noted by Kant and confirmed by Wundt that a corresponding facial expression can also cause the corresponding emotions. Coué in his methods of psychotherapy (autohypnosis), which have recently attracted attention, uses, among other things, the method of artificially eliciting the emotional state he needs through facial expression. Being connected in anatomical and physiological terms with the activity of the cerebral cortex and subcortical formations (optic thalamus), facial movements are important in diagnostic terms for the neuropathologist as well. Various forms of facial expression disorders (dysmimia) are observed: excessive animation of facial movements (hypermimia) can appear with subcortical motor aphasia, when the patient, deprived of a sufficient supply of words, supplements his speech with excessive facial expression. The discrepancy between facial expression and the experienced affect is called paramimia (see Will and its disorders). Symptoms of hemimimia also have essential diagnostic significance. In diseases of the optic thalamus, the corresponding half of the face, retaining the ability to voluntary movements, remains motionless during mental affects (laughter, crying). The reverse phenomenon is observed in hemimimics without damage to the optic thalamus, namely - the half of the face incapable of voluntary movements exhibits energetic movements during affects. In some diseases, there is an absence of facial expression (amimia) on both sides, the so-called "mask-like face" (parkinsonism after epidemic encephalitis, progressive paralysis). Literature: Reich M., Expression of the Eyes, SPb., without a year (Ricker's publishing house); Sikorsky I., General Psychology with Physiognomy in an Illustrated Presentation, Kiev, 1904; Cuyer E., La mimique, P., 1902; Duchenne D., Mecanisme de la physionomie humaine, P., 1862; Hersing F., Der Ausdruck des Auges, Stuttgart, 1880; Hughes H., Die Bedeutung der Mimik für den Arzt, B., 1901; Kirchhoff Th., Der Gesichtsausdruck bei inneren Krankheiten, Samml. klin. Vorträge, neue Folge, Inn. Med., № 156, Lpz., 1909; by the same author, Der Gesichtsausdruck u. seine Bahnen beim Gesunden u. Kranken, B., 1922; Kleemann E., Mimik u. Pantomimik, Physiognomik u. Charakterologie, Arch. f. Krim., Anthrop. u. Kriminalist., B. LIV, 1913; Krukenberg H., Der Gesichtsausdruck des Menschen, Stuttgart, 1913; Sommer R., Experimentelle Physiognomik, Zeitschr. f. d. ges. Neurol. u. Psych., B. LXVIII, 1920; Sonnenberger M., Physiognomik u. Mimik, Med. Klin., B. XI, p. 56 u. 84, 1915; Virchow H., Gesichtsmuskeln u. Gesichtsausdruck, Arch. f. Anat., 1908, Heft 5-6, p. 371-436. See also literature for the article Expressive movements.