The Window to the Soul

Charles Darwin’s research on the connection between the face and emotion was presented in, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). This was a revolutionary concept, but at the time it was published it went relatively unnoticed and since then has been lost in history among his other marvelous contributions to science. Emotional expressions, however, have recently caught the attention of researches throughout the U.S. as they examine emotions with respect to people who have been born with facial paralysis. The interest begins, because leading studies have shown that facial mimicry is what allows people to interpret each other’s emotions, while a person with facial paralysis is not able to interact in this way. This explains why a person with facial paralysis would struggle interacting in the “normal” manner, because the people they are interacting with feel disconnected from them, because they cannot determine the person’s emotions. People with facial paralysis, however, are just as good as people without it at identifying emotions, which proves that there is some other mechanism that a person can use to identify emotions other than facial mimicry. Scientists hope to apply this discover to helping people who suffer from conditions such as autism, which make them unable to determine facial cues. Their thought process is that if they can figure out how to teach someone to use this other mechanism of identification of emotions, then they will be able to teach these people how to emotionally connect with the world.

Full Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/health/06mind.html

Darwin Rocks.

Sam