Comparative analysis of mimical and autonomic components of man's emotional state

In experiments on 35 subjects--actors and representatives of other skills--activity of the facial mimical muscles (EMG, videotape recordings) was compared to changes in heart rate during reproduction of emotionally coloured situations according to the method of K. S. Stanislavskiy. At the first stage of experiments, the subject experienced emotion and expressed it; at the second he experienced emotion but impeded its facial expression; at the third he gave facial expression but remained calm. It was shown that the combined method of diagnosing human emotional state is the most effective one because changes in heart rate reveal emotional stress and contraction of specific groups of muscles helps to identify the nature of the emotion; joy, anger, fear or sadness.