1 - PRE-DARWINIAN VIEWS ON FACIAL EXPRESSION

Abstract

Physiognomy was the classical practice of facial morphology or face reading. Even during earlier periods when physiognomy was especially in vogue, the belief was pervasive that the face was the window to the soul. This tradition of classical physiognomy characterized traits from the conformation of the face despite the range of factors that may have produced it. The range of facial morphological contortions that were visible to the observer, that Leibniz labeled as passions, were believed to give away a person's true feelings. Until the nineteenth century, interest in the face was primarily morphological and physiognomic, and most observers abided by Aristotle's skepticism about whether fleeting facial movements were at all worth studying. Thereafter, interest in facial movements grew as the result of a number of factors. Pre-Darwinian evolutionists attempted explanations to account for facial muscular actions; pre-Darwinian evolutionist Lorenz Oken believed that the bones and muscles of the head were but transformed extremities. While, Charles Bell in his Essays on the anatomy of expression in painting , 1806, attempted to explain facial actions simply as indicating pleasant versus unpleasant sentiments. Darwin's account of facial expression attempted to link icon like faces with discrete basic emotions. Darwin's attack took the form of a volume on the face and emotion, the Expression of the emotions in man and animals .