Give me face, Face, FACE.

It is said that our eyes are the windows to our soul, but what if we said that eyes were also the window to your mental health. Think back to that Tyra banks skill, whether you can smile with your eyes (tries to “smize”, but fails) Have you ever been told that you may be smiling but your eyes say otherwise? As if a person knew you were in pain, or lost in thought.

There are several studies that indicate that facial expressions are almost universal when it comes to “core” innate feelings and reactions; that is in quotes because different cultures have different feelings that are considered “core”. In the article they tested and screened several infants across several cultures, and their reaction to certain stimuli, such as fear and taste and how each affected their facial expressions; unexpected loud sound denotes a surprised face, sour food denotes the sour face, respectively.

Which shows that it is an innate human reaction, facial expressions are needed to distinguish a stimuli for another person to reference. For example, (more or less an assumption), when cave men were “socializing”, in other words hunting and gathering. Caveman number one might pick up a root, smell it, has no stench, so the face of confusion might be noticed by another. Then he bites it, and dies, (just kidding), he bites it and it is a bitter and acrid to taste, so the facial expression at that point, would be disgust and that is noticed by caveman number two and he doesn’t eat the root, because of what he saw. Now how does that tie in with psychology. Being that your hunger and need for food is part of the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs which means it applies to everyone, you can see how facial expression, in this case the aversion of a certain food, has transcended to social categories. The now bitter face of disgust to the root is now similar to the face that you make when you see someone or something that you despise; so much so that you make an acrid face (I hope you don’t have a person like that in your life). Seems like it’s one of those concepts where we as humans are separate from the animals, perhaps not rhesus monkeys, there has been studies on their facial expression and recognition as well. So now lets take this further, what if a part of the face is covered. can you still tell what emotion a person is feeling?

If the top part of the face is covered, leaving the mouth and nose exposed, you can see happiness with a smile and sadness with a frown you can even see a hint of maybe disgust with a scrunched nose? Why not confusion? well, you need the eyes to determine that (sits and makes a confused face the nose is scrunched, sits and makes a disgusted face, still, nose is scrunched).

The difference noticed is the eye brow movement, disgust, similar to anger has both eye brows frowned, while confusion similar to surprise has eye brows either both or one, raised. (Sits and makes a menacing face) Now that menacing face suggest another motive, it suggest intent rather than a reaction to something and intent is subjective in the human mind. This leads us to lying about our emotions, (see it came back around after all) If I am walking into a surprise party and I make the face of being surprised, but in reality I knew about it the whole time, then my face’s reaction is now an intentional face, to put a facade that I was “surprised” (I don’t like surprises any how).
So can a facial expression answer the question, “are you okay?” in more ways than one?
Yes!
You may smile at the question “Are you okay?”, (no words in the reaction/answer, that may confound things) but your eyes say otherwise they suggest pain and sadness. So if ages after ages, it is said that eyes are the windows to the soul, how deep is your soul, and how connected is it to your mental health? (take that Jason Mraz, just kidding) Some may say they are one in the same, that the soul is a construct of the mind. But what if your mental state is in turmoil; Are you reacting with a smile to answer the question or are you pleading for help with you eyes? Is it subconscious, or intentional?
Now, I end this with the words of the great William Shakespeare’s Othello, “I will wear my heart upon my sleeve…”
And I couldn’t agree more.

Resources:

Russell, J. A. (1994). Is there universal recognition of emotion from facial expressions? A review of the cross-cultural studies. Psychological bulletin, 115(1), 102.

Rosenfeld, S. A., & Van Hoesen, G. W. (1979). Face recognition in the rhesus monkey. Neuropsychologia, 17(5), 503-509.

Shakespeare, W. (1751). Othello the Moor of Venice. A tragedy. By William Shakespear. (p. Act. 1 Scene 1 Pg 3). Dublin: Printed for Peter Wilson, in Dame-Street.