Comparing fear and anxiety chemosignals: Do they modulate facial muscle activity and facilitate identifying facial expressions?

Abstract

Fear and anxiety are the most frequently studied emotional states in chemosignal research. Despite differences between these two emotional states, findings from research using fear and anxiety body odors (BOs) are often treated as part of a similar phenomenon. In this article, we examine possible similarities and differences between participants exposed to fear and anxiety BOs on 2 dependent variables commonly used in chemosignals' research: (1) the activation of facial muscles in displays of fear expressions (i.e. the medial frontalis and the corrugator supercilii); and (2) the time required to discriminate between negative emotional expressions (fear, anger, and disgust) and neutral ones. Our results show that fear (vs. rest) and anxiety (vs. exercise) BOs activate the medial frontalis, suggesting that both have a similar impact on receivers' facial muscles. However, we could not replicate previous findings regarding the influence of fear BOs in discriminating negative emotional faces from neutral ones. Two additional replication attempts failed to replicate the earlier results, indicating that the results reported in the literature with this specific paradigm should be interpreted cautiously. Suggestions for future research examining possible differences between fear and anxiety BOs are advanced.