Does Facial Amimia Impact the Recognition of Facial Emotions? An EMG Study in Parkinson's Disease.

Soizic Argaud,Joan Duprez,Jean-François Houvenaghel,Manon Auffret,Sylvain Delplanque,Paul Sauleau,Didier Grandjean,Marc Vérin,Sonja Kotz

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0160329

Soizic Argaud, Joan Duprez + Show 7 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0160329

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Abstract

According to embodied simulation theory, understanding other people’s emotions is fostered by facial mimicry. However, studies assessing the effect of facial mimicry on the recognition of emotion are still controversial. In Parkinson’s disease (PD), one of the most distinctive clinical features is facial amimia, a reduction in facial expressiveness, but patients also show emotional disturbances. The present study used the pathological model of PD to examine the role of facial mimicry on emotion recognition by investigating EMG responses in PD patients during a facial emotion recognition task (anger, joy, neutral). Our results evidenced a significant decrease in facial mimicry for joy in PD, essentially linked to the absence of reaction of the zygomaticus major and the orbicularis oculi muscles in response to happy avatars, whereas facial mimicry for expressions of anger was relatively preserved. We also confirmed that PD patients were less accurate in recognizing positive and neutral facial expressions and highlighted a beneficial effect of facial mimicry on the recognition of emotion. We thus provide additional arguments for embodied simulation theory suggesting that facial mimicry is a potential lever for therapeutic actions in PD even if it seems not to be necessarily required in recognizing emotion as such.

Highlights

Facial expression is a powerful non-verbal channel providing rapid essential clues for the perception of other people’s emotions, intentions and dispositions during social interactions
We investigated for the first time EMG responses to facial expressions among patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease (PD) in a facial emotion recognition paradigm
In accordance with the literature, the PD patients were less accurate in decoding facial expressions of joy and neutral faces compared to the healthy controls (HC)

Summary

Introduction

Facial expression is a powerful non-verbal channel providing rapid essential clues for the perception of other people’s emotions, intentions and dispositions during social interactions. It constitutes a key component in daily social communication [1,2]. The processing of facial expressions normally contributes to behaviours that are appropriate to the emotion perceived and the situation and to the person with whom we are communicating. This ensures successful social interactions [3,4].

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