The Enfacement Illusion Is Not Affected by Negative Facial Expressions.

ABSTRACT: Enfacement is an illusion wherein synchronous visual and tactile inputs update the mental representation of one's own face to assimilate another person's face. Emotional facial expressions, serving as communicative signals, may influence enfacement by increasing the observer's motivation to understand the mental state of the expresser. Fearful expressions, in particular, might increase enfacement because they are valuable for adaptive behavior and more strongly represented in somatosensory cortex than other emotions. In the present study, a face was seen being touched at the same time as the participant's own face. This face was either neutral, fearful, or angry. Anger was chosen as an emotional control condition for fear because it is similarly negative but induces less somatosensory reso

SUBMITTER: Beck B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4546364 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature