01x07 - In Your Face

Episode transcripts for the TV show "Mind Field". Aired: January 2017 to October 2019.*
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"Mind Field" takes a journey into the mysterious depths of the human psyche and investigates the strange and surprising terrain of the Mind Field.
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01x07 - In Your Face

Post by bunniefuu »

If I asked you to show me a picture of your mother, you wouldn't show me a, uh, closeup sh*t of her elbow.

But you could, and you'd be right.

That would be a photo of her, but it wouldn't feel right because it's not her face.

That's how important faces are to us.

We're going to see if forcing a facial expression can change the way we feel.


Are you comfortable handling dog feces?

Okay.

And if you remove the ability to make facial expressions, will it affect how you perceive emotions in others?

What?

No.

How could that... that... no.

I don't think so.

And what are we saying by raising an eyebrow?

Do you know?

[electronic music]

♪ ♪


Why does doing this make me look angry?

And why does doing this make me look so happy?

Where does all this stuff come from?

When it comes to interpersonal communication, it's easy to think that speech dominates, but yet, we have hairless faces.

That's very unique among mammals that are easy to see expressions on.

Facial expressions are shared across humanity.

A smile is a smile in any language.


Our faces seem uniquely adapted for communication.

Before we developed language, facial expressions may have been just as vital in communication as shouts and grunts.

And we, of course, still use them today.


But when it comes to facial expressions, it's not just about seeing other people's expressions and having them see yours.

It's also about seeing your own.

And the fact that our eyes are deep-set allows us to see our own facial expressions as we're making them.

If you smile, you can see your own cheeks rise slightly.

And if you furrow your brow, it encroaches on the top of your vision.

These things give you instant feedback on the degree to which you are altering your face and tell you instantly what sort of expression you are putting out into the world.

No mirror required.

♪ ♪

Some of the most interesting experiments on facial expressions have asked, "What comes first?

The emotion or the facial expression?"

Studies have found that if you hold a pencil between your teeth all day, you will have a better day.

Why? Well, because holding a pencil between your teeth without your lips touching is like smiling.

It uses pretty much the same muscles.

Watch.

[muffled] I don't know...

I don't know I'm smiling, but I am.

Conversely, pursing your lips around the pencil is like frowning.

And studies have found that if someone does that, they will actually report having a less good day.

Well, we're gonna put that to the test and find out if the facial contortions you make can subconsciously affect how you feel.

Studies on how physiology affects mood go as far back as the 1800s, with early research carried out by Charles Darwin and French neurologist Duchenne de Boulogne.

This work has continued into present day using various techniques to create smiles and frowns.

But studies have been inconsistent as to whether facial expressions can influence emotions, so we wanted to see if we could demonstrate a correlation between the two.

♪ ♪


Hi.

Hi.

Come on in, guys.

Chris, my name is Michael.

Nice to meet you. My name is Michael.

We've recruited 20 volunteers who think they're taking part in an allergy study.

Today we are testing a new kind of dog food, and it actually seems to help dogs produce fewer allergens, so people who are allergic to dogs might be more comfortable around them.

And we're going to be using these allergen sticks.

Now, the purpose of this stick is to collect saliva to check the way your body reacts to possible allergens in the air.

Put it between your teeth like that, okay?

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Half of our participants will be unknowingly forced into a smile.

Yeah, very simple.

Uh-huh.

The other half will unwittingly be forced to use their frown muscles.

Watch. My teeth are together, and then... hmm.

Got it?

Both: Mm-hmm.

We're gonna give the frowners and the smilers the same two tasks.

Go ahead, and I'll see you guys soon.

Will the people who were forced to frown rank each task lower than those made to smile?

Come on in.

To test their levels of happiness, our actor, Trin, gave our subjects a task everybody loves: puppy herding with lots and lots of puppies.

First up are our smilers.


They're all wearing little tags.

Mm-hmm.

So your job is to line them up in alphabetical order. Once you got 'em all lined up, I'll snap a photo of you.

Okay.

And you got three minutes to do it.

Starting now.

Hello. I know.

Make sure they're in alphabetical order.

They're naming the dogs.

She's having fun.

I just got the... oh!

Don't go away.

[laughs]

Swap those two.

You got one minute left.

This looks like fun, but are they having even more fun because they're being forced to smile?

All right, get ready for the photo.

[camera shutter clicks]

Our smilers are laughing and goofing around.

Fantastic.

Now, let's see how our frowners react to this fun task.

Three minutes.

[humming]

He's running away from you.

[groans]

The question is, will frowning emphasize the parts that aren't fun... In your mind, at least.

[dogs barking]

Oh, we lost F.

Got one little strangler right over here.

Ugh!

If the frowners seem a bit frustrated herding puppies...


[mutters angrily]

How will they like their next task?


If you would each grab a pair of gloves.

Are you comfortable handling dog feces?

Okay. And we're also going to be looking at whether there are any protein deposits that have collected, um, in the fecal matter.

She's like, "Are you serious?"

So go ahead and spread it out on the table.

[stifled retching]

Ooh.


Not happy.

And what you're looking for are small, hard deposits.

Not much indication that there's a smile trying to come through.

Hmm.

Okay, great.

[exhales]

Thank you, that'll do it.

Our frowners don't seem to be enjoying this assignment.

Will the smilers have a different reaction?


Grab a pair of gloves.

It may be easier to kind of smear it and spread it out.

The hypothesis is, that by smiling, they'll focus more on the funny aspects of what they're about to do.

[laughs] Yeah.

Oh, my God.

[laughs]

[groans] Oh.

There's disgust in his eyes and his brow, but his mouth can't help but smile.

[chuckles]

Okay, great, guys.

Thank you so much. Then, when you're ready, just follow me and we'll do a debrief with Mr. Stevens.

Okay.

Sure.

Hey, welcome back.

Now, think about, um, organizing the puppies and taking a photo of them.

Mmm.

And how you felt.

Tell me what you were thinking and feeling while you were doing that task.

I mean, the puppies are extremely cute.

Mm-hmm.

Can I keep one?

Is it cool with you guys?


The dogs actually cooperated pretty well.

Mm-hmm?

I was able to put them in order.


They're amazing.

It wasn't stressful.

So on a scale of 1 to 10...

Where 1 is you cannot tolerate it and 10, best day of your life...

How would you rank the puppy photo task?

I'm gonna say like a 9.

10.

8.

8.

I'm gonna go with an 8.

A 9.

That's an average of 8.5 from our small sample of ten subjects who were forced to smile during the photo assignment.

Now let's see how the frowners rated the same task.


How did you feel while you were doing that?

Um, a little frustrated, to be honest with you, 'cause they kept moving around.

Well, it was difficult getting them to stay in place and put them in order.

How would you rank the photo taking task?

Mmm, 4.

About 4.

A 10.

I love puppies.

Still a 10?

Yeah, me too.

I would go more on the middle ground, maybe like 5.

Many of the frowners reported feeling frustrated with this experience, tallying an average score of 7.4, more than a point lower than the smilers.

Now let's talk about the poop checking job.

Very unpleasant.

It was disgusting.

How would you rank the poop checking task?

1... it was a 1.

A 1?

It was for sure a 1.

1.

A 4.

Is a zero possible?

Our frowning subjects averaged a low score of 1.9.

The question is, did our smiling group feel any better about digging through poo?


It wasn't too uncomfortable.

It was sort of unexpected, but it wasn't like it bothered me.

I wasn't, like, disgusted like, "Ew! This is disgusting!"

I just kind of held my breath.

Many of our smilers reported this unpleasant task as being no big deal or actually funny.

I'd say a 5 because it wasn't...

Neither here nor there for me.

It was a 5.

A high 4.

5, I guess.

A 5? Okay.

5, right in the middle.

The average score for the smiling group was 4.3 out of 10.

Smilers enjoyed sifting through poop an average of 2 1/2 points more than our frowners.


And have a great day.

Have fun with your poop.

[laughs] I will.

I always do.

♪ ♪
Our test found that people who made smile faces enjoyed tasks more, and those who frowned enjoyed them less.

This facial feedback concept is still being debated though.

And other studies have recently failed to reproduce these findings.

But it's a very healthy thing that we don't just look at one test and say, "Well, that's it.

That must be the truth. We're done."

In the words of Brian Nosek, lead researcher of the Reproducibility Project, science isn't about truth and falsity.

It's about reducing uncertainty.

Facial expressions are so important to human communication that people develop ways to read your face even if they can't see it.

Tommy, thanks for coming to visit.

Thanks for having me.

I love what you've done with the place.

Hey, thank you so much.

[laughs]

What I would like to talk about is facial expressions.

All right, sir.

'Cause, Tommy, you have been blind since you were born.

That's right.

How did you learn about facial expressions?

'Cause you make them. You smile.

You... I've never seen you mad, but I bet if you get mad...

Yeah.

You... I can tell.

Yeah. When I'm laughing, I smile, right?

It just comes naturally.

So that part's innate.

That part is innate.

Absolutely it is, no question.

But in order to imitate it, that was the tricky part for me.

Right? 'Cause sometimes I'd smile, like, too much.

You know, like that. I don't know.

Like, I feel like that's pushing it too hard.

That's not really natural. But, you know, so it's probably somewhere around here, I guess.

So could you make an angry face for me right now?

That's close, but do you think if you'd seen an angry face it would be easier to fake one?

Yes, I think so.

Let me ask you this.

Can you tell what facial expression I'm making?

Well, when you're smiling, I can hear it in your voice.

Right.

Right? It's very obvious.

'Cause when you smile, your lips don't really touch the right way, so letters like M and B and P, for example, you know, they sound just a little bit different.

Right. So it sounds like you know more about how a smile affects speech than most sighted people would.

Thank you. There's a lot of audible clues that help me to get the facial expression.

Well, Tommy, thank you so much for coming in.

I love having guests in my home.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

[soft dramatic music]

♪ ♪


When we look at other people's faces, we often subconsciously imitate their facial expressions.

It's called facial mirroring.

And it's a way for us to let other people know we understand them, that we feel the same things that they feel.

Facial mirroring begins in infancy and continuous throughout our lives.

Studies have shown that if you can't facially mirror, if you can't express things with your own face, you actually have trouble understanding what other people's faces are expressing.

So to try that out, let's hinder some people's facial muscles.

What's a good way to do that?

Well, how about a dose of botulinum toxin?

♪ ♪

We have gathered a group of volunteers for a facial expression recognition experiment.


Thank you all for coming in today.

We're going to begin with a test.

A test of your ability to recognize facial expressions.

Our participants will be shown pictures of eyes expressing either positive or negative emotions.

Your task is to look at each face and to decide which of those four emotions the face is expressing.

Makes sense?

Each photo is designed to display one standard emotion that is known to elicit an established consensus.

For example, in this photo, what emotion would you identify?

If you said, "terrified", you'd be in the majority.

Now it's our participant's turn.


Okay, everyone ready?

Mm-hmm.

Go.

[device beeping]

All right, moving on to number 2.

For most people, this is a simple task that should come with a relatively high success rate.

All right, card number 6... Number 9...

Number 13... 19...

Our 12 volunteers will give us an idea of how well the average person identifies emotions.

And 25.

All right, everyone. Great work.

I hope you had fun. Thank you for your time.

After 25 cards, our participants were able to identify the correct positive emotion 77% of the time, and the correct negative emotion 78.8% of the time.

But how well will they do if we stop them from mirroring the expressions they see...


[cap pops]

By freezing their faces with botox?

We forced all of these participants to receive Botox injections.


How are you?

I'm good.

I'm Dr. Ali. Nice to meet you.

Just kidding.

They were gonna do it anyway, and they let us tag along in the name of science.


What areas were you looking to get done?

Um, I'd like to do this area.

Okay, okay.

I would like to fix this part between my two eyebrows, because I feel like... I don't know.

I just look older and grumpy.

Although we communicate a ton of information with our faces, in the interest of looking younger, many people pay to be injected with a chemical that essentially renders our faces mute, or rather, gives us a sort of facial speech impediment.

Botox was first used in the 1970s to treat muscular eye disorders like crossed eyes and uncontrollable blinking.

The FDA didn't approve the use of Botox for cosmetic procedures until 2002.

The active ingredient in Botox is a toxin produced by the bacterium
Clostridium botulinum.

This toxin can cause botulism in larger amounts, but in smaller amounts when injected into, say, the wrinkles between your eyebrows or around your mouth, the toxin blocks the nerves from delivering signals to the facial muscles, telling them to contract.

[bell tings]

Pull your hair back a little bit...

Yes.

And then tell me what areas you were thinking of getting it done.

So I was thinking here, 'cause I have a couple wrinkles that are starting to show.

Okay.

I'm 31 years old, and I want to get Botox because I want to look young forever.

Common expressions that people want to get rid of is the angry lines, the furrows we get in between the eyes.

And the horizontal wrinkles we get in our forehead, that will go away.

Michael: If the Botox procedure prevents these patients from being able to mirror the facial expressions of others, will it also impede their ability to recognize the emotions associated with those expressions?


Have you had Botox before?

I never have.

Do you wanna touch everything?

If we can, yeah.

Yeah, definitely.

Awesome.

I think Botox is probably going to change my expressions and I might have to overdo them a little bit, but I already do that anyway, so I think that it won't matter so much.

You doing okay?

Mm-hmm.

We'll soon explore whether paralyzing their facial muscles affects how these people score on the facial recognition test.

You may not see the results for at least three to seven days.

Oh, yeah. Okay.

We'll check back in with our subjects in two weeks after they've settled into their new, expression-free faces.

In the meantime, let's meet two people who've had modified faces for quite a while.


Lacy, Justin, welcome.

Hi.

Hi. How are you?

Hi.

Great to see you guys.

Hi.

It's nice to meet you.

Thanks for coming over.

How are you?

Good to see you.

So, I'm so thrilled to have both of you here.

How does it feel to be known as the Ken and Barbie of real life?

I don't know... the world just pinned me as that, and then I happened to meet my best bestie that is Ken.

And what about you?

Did you intend to be like a Ken doll or...?

No. I mean, initially... Initially this all had to do with the passion that I had for, like, body sculpture, right?

I just did what I loved, and I saw this as a medium to be... to be creative, to be open, to be expressive, and to be different, right, to set myself apart.

So I'm the first person in the world to have three-piece shoulder implants.

We are the first people to try that, right?

We're own guinea pigs. We're our own...

We create them.

We're our own Dr. Frankenstein and Frankenstein, right?


Okay, so have both of you had Botox done?

Absolutely.

Every... every three months since I've been 25 years old.

How has Botox or other procedures on your face affected your ability to make facial expressions?

I waited a year to have it this year so I could actually see a little bit of my own face, because my kids are like, "Mom, you know, we can't really tell if you're mad at us.

You always look like you're surprised."

I'm, like, walking around the house like this.

I'm like, "Ohh!"

So I haven't had Botox in a year just because I wanted to be able to do this.

"Go to your room!" No.

Interesting.

Do you feel like you've lost something by not being able to show when you're mad?

I don't know what you're talking about.

Well, when you look at me now, you can tell I'm smiling.

I just don't have the lines here.

It's a bit of a subtle change.

Have you noticed Botox affecting your ability to read other people's facial expressions?

What?

No.

How could that... that... no.

My answer would be no.

No. It's actually...

You haven't noticed that?

Not at all.

[laughter]

Barbie and Ken may not ascribe to the facial mirroring theory, but let's check back with our Botox recipients.

It's been two weeks, and now they've brought their wrinkle-free faces back to see if their limited expressions will affect their ability to read emotions.


So, to refresh you on the rules: look at the eyes, determine what emotion is being conveyed, write down your answer, and then we'll move on to the next one.

Go.

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

My face feels a lot more relaxed.


And it's... it's kind of nice.

Okay, slide number 9.

[device beeps]

When I look at people, they don't really know that I'm angry.

I actually can't.

I did have a friend... Um, she noticed.

She gets Botox too, and she was like, "Your Botox looks amazing."

If I'm angry, probably how you would know is by my eye contact with you.

Because I can't move my forehead.

This subject has definitely limited her ability to make a facial expression, as have our other Botox recipients.

But will that affect how they interpret emotions in others?


All right, just 75 more.

[women scoff]

Kidding. That's the end of the exam.

Before they received Botox, our participents correctly identified 77% of the positive emotions and 78.8% of the negative emotions.

But after receiving Botox, our participents correctly identified only 73.8% of the positive emotions and 68.8% of the negative emotions.

So, at least in our modest sample, once our participents lost their ability to frown they found it especially difficult to identify negative emotions in others.

But if modern advances like Botox can impede our capacity to read other's faces, can other forms of technology enhance our ability to see emotions?

Author and theoretical neurobiologist Mark Changizi has developed a scientific way to read facial expressions.


Mark, I'm glad you came over, because you have knowledge about facial expressions and what's going on beyond just the more obvious external stuff.

Is blood flow part of facial expressions?

Yeah, so we don't usually think about it, but at all times you're seeing these subtle modulations of color.

And as you get more blood or less blood under the skin, it becomes bluer or yellower, and as it becomes more or less oxygenated, it becomes redder or greener.

And this is true independent
of what ethnicity you are, what race you are, or what kind of primate you are. It's the same.

What emotions correlate to what colors?

Well, there's a rough sense in which when you're angry, you're showing oxygenated blood.

When you're sad, it's more likely to be showing greener.

If you're fearful, your blood pumps away from the periphery, which means that it gets yellower.


So, Mark, you've brought some tools with you, an invention of yours, actually, that helps us better perceive these color changes.

That's right, so these are what paramedics wear 'cause they're nice, protective eyewear that they should be wearing anyway, and when you wear these, your veins, suddenly they're glowing a little bit.

The same technology that helps paramedics see veins
also allows you to see emotions better because it's enhancing that same oxygenation signal that those emotions rely upon.

So you've got glasses that allow us to better see the colors that are related to emotion and how it's affected by blood flow.

That's right. This is not the kind of thing...

It's not like you look and it says, "angry," you know, written across the screen.

No, it works on your normal intuitions.

The idea is that it makes those signals easier to see, so it should give you more insight into what their mood, what their intent is.

Whether through technology or evolution, we humans have always found a way to read and use facial expressions.

And those expressions show no sign of becoming less important, unless we evolve past faces, of course.


So, did you like the show?

If you didn't, put a pencil in your mouth and go watch it again.

If you enjoy it more or less or the same, just let us know.

Science will thank you.

And as always, thanks for watching.

[electronic music]

♪ ♪
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