Research Paper on "Decoding Facial Expressions in Situations"

Research Paper 8 pages (2587 words) Sources: 5

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Decoding Facial Expressions in Situations:

It is a tendency for human beings to observe other often and communicate their opinions of the situation. Apart from behavior, the facial expressions of others are one of the ways of evaluating another human being. Through the use of facial expressions, people tend to decide a situation without necessarily reading in between the lines and decisive about their opinions toward others. For example, when an individual shows an angry facial expression, we frequently conclude that the person is angry. Many individuals have learned to evaluate others by their facial expressions through a process of socialization or cultural upbringing. According to research, various cultures and societies decode unique facial features to interpret emotions. For instance, Japanese cultures are usually attentive on eyes while cultures in the United States tend to focus their attention on the mouth ("Culture Is Key To Interpreting," 2007).

The other way through which people discover facial expressions is by self-reflection i.e. depending on our personal experience with these emotions. These personal experiences enable us to understand the feeling of others based exclusively on their facial expressions. For instance, we may conclude that a person is in pain and in need of help when we him/her crying. Facial expressions represent the six major categories of emotions which are happy, surprise, anger, fear, disgust and sadness. In social interactions, the role of facial expressions remains significant even though the capabilities of spoken language have been acquired (Schyns, Petro & Smith, 2009). Facial expressions are not only visible manifestations but they are also part of a planned emotional response regardless of whether they are inextricably connected to the internal emotion. For a long period of time, the universality of facial expressions across cultures has continued to be a subject of many deliberations. Nonetheless, a person's face can be considered as a signaling system because it conveys a signal of the emotional state of the person.

Perspectives in Facial Expressions:

While it may be considered as an instinct from childhood, there are many people without the ability to understand emotions. As a result, emotion recognition through facial expressions is more of an intricate problem with no simple answer. This fact has contributed to the development of three perspectives in facial expressions that enhance emotion recognition. The three perspectives that have also been created by several examples are & #8230;

Behavioral Perspective:

As mentioned earlier, behavior is one of the major ways in evaluating human beings with the behavioral perspective examining the controlling factors of emotion recognition early in life. This perspective identifies the factors of emotion recognition in early life as familiarity and early growth, early experiences and abuse as well as aggression. In the early development stage, infants are mainly motivated to recognize emotions through the familiarity of a face. Infants are more responsive to their mothers' emotional expressions as compared to the emotional expressions of unfamiliar individuals. This is because infants first become accustomed to the facial expressions of their main caregivers. Consequently, early life experiences and inappropriate care also plays a critical role in the ability of infants to recognize emotions. In addition to being more aggressive and hostile, abused children know the facial expressions of anger because of unfriendly experiences in early life.

Biological Perspective:

This perspective in facial expressions and emotion recognition includes both the neural structures and clinical findings. The Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) was used in a research to trace the neural structures that are significant in emotion recognition. According to the findings of the fMRI, emotions are generally dependant on split systems but with one processing point. Additionally, most of the physiological studies regarding emotion recognition are based on clinical findings. The elimination and identification of the possible structures that manage emotion recognition through facial expressions have been done through lesion studies.

Cognitive Perspective:

This perspective of emotion recognition incorporates several factors such as the facial element of focus, principal component investigation and situational influences. Basically, the recognition of emotions in this perspective is based on the parts of a face and situational aspects. The major parts of a face which are central to the facial component of focus are eyes, eyebrows as well as mouth and nose divided into the middle, upper and lower categories of facial features (Fox, 2004). Moreover, the principal component analysis is a method used to find out the groups of facial features that shows the opinion of individual emotions. Within this technique, it was discovered that certain relationships between facial features are critical in recognition of emotions.

The final factor in the cognitive perspective of emotion recognition through facial expressions is the primary situational influence. This factor determines the link between emotional facial expressions and a social or non-social situation. According to the findings of a research based on this factor, social and non-social situations are crucial in the recognition of emotions with certain emotions associated with specific social situations. Therefore, perception of emotions through facial expressions is influenced by both social and non-social situations.

Research Question:

The decoding of facial expression in a date-type situation for couples falls under the cognitive perspective of emotion recognition. As previously mention, social and situational influences are critical factors in understanding emotions through facial expressions. In this case, the understanding of facial expressions for a couple on a date is different from facial expressions of couples in a non-social situation. Couples tend to behave differently when there is communication between two or more people or when a person communicates a similar degree of emotion in a given social situation. Date-type situations are more of social situations than non-social situations for couples and are a crucial factor in emotion recognition through facial expressions.

In understanding the facial expressions of couples, it's important to note that there are several differences between married and unmarried couples. The differences are the results of the difference in behavior between the married couples and the unmarried couples. For instance, as compared to married couples, unmarried couples tend to touch more often and are physically close to each other. Furthermore, the unmarried couples look at each other while talking about a myriad of things as compared to the married couples. Through this constant talking while looking at each other, the facial expressions of unmarried couples mean different things as compared to the ones of married couples.

Married couples usually tend to sit far from each other while barely looking at each other because of the fact that they are busy looking at other things. Moreover, the behavior of married couples towards each other usually differs depending on the situation at hand. For example, the way married couples behave when they have disagreements while at home is different from the way they behave while out for a dinner date. Additionally, these couples behave differently when out for a first date than at any other social situation. The major question examined in this research paper is whether married couples touch less as compared to unmarried couples while out for a date. This research paper will focus on both the confirmation and problems concerning the visible facial expressions of married couple in a date-type situation.

Observations:

The non-verbal communication elements used in interpersonal communication between married couples determines marriage satisfaction. This is because people usually believe the non-verbal communication signals as compared to the verbal communication signals. The attraction and satisfaction of married couples is based on their level of interaction. In fact, couples who interact with each other are more attracted to each other than those who do not interact with one another (Enochson & Wiseman, 1999). Many studies have been carried out to evaluate the facial expressions in non-verbal communication of married couples and its significance to attraction.

One of the ways in which married couples interact is by going out on a date which enhances the satisfaction in a marriage. There are key non-verbal communication signals that determine satisfaction such as the distance between them, eye contact and body accessibility. In decoding the facial expressions of married couples in date situation, couples usually display more eyes gazing in their first date. These married couples maintain their eye contact while out on a date to promote their satisfaction of each other. For these couples, the facial expressions of their partners determine whether or not they enjoy their time in the venue of their date. While maintaining eye contact, the couples are able to perceive facial expressions such as smile, frowning, narrowed eyes and jaw drop.

Identification Procedures:

The research was conducted through sitting at a restaurant and observing the people who came in at the restaurant. Married couples were identified through their wedding rings while unmarried couples were partners who walked in but didn't have wedding rings on their fingers. As various couples walked in and out of the restaurant at different times, twenty married couples were observed through the identification of wedding rings on their fingers and their behavior towards each other. Additionally, there are other factors that were used… READ MORE

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