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Facial mimicry interference reduces working memory accuracy for facial emotion expressions
Emil Holmer1,2, Jerker Rönnberg1,2, Erkin Asutay1,3
1Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
Plos One
|June 26, 2024
Summary
Facial mimicry aids working memory for emotion recognition under low cognitive load. However, this effect diminishes with increased working memory demands, suggesting mimicry
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Social Psychology
- Affective Science
Background:
- Facial mimicry, the imitation of others' facial expressions, is crucial for processing emotional cues.
- The role of facial mimicry may shift under high cognitive load, where working memory is essential for social understanding.
- The precise influence of facial mimicry on working memory for facial emotion expressions remains unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To experimentally investigate how interfering with facial mimicry affects working memory recall of facial emotion expressions.
- To examine the interaction between facial mimicry, working memory load, and performance accuracy in emotion recognition.
Main Methods:
- Healthy young adults (N=36) participated in an n-back task assessing working memory for facial emotion expressions.
- Participants experienced three levels of mimicry interference: high, low, and none.
- The task included two working memory load conditions: low (1-back) and high (2-back).
Main Results:
- High mimicry interference impaired accuracy during low working memory load (1-back).
- Unexpectedly, high mimicry interference did not impair accuracy during high working memory load (2-back).
- Increased working memory load negatively impacted performance across all mimicry interference levels.
Conclusions:
- Facial mimicry may support working memory for emotion expressions, particularly when cognitive demands are low.
- The facilitative effect of facial mimicry on working memory for emotions appears to decrease as task difficulty increases.
- Cognitive load significantly impacts the interplay between facial mimicry and working memory in emotion processing.
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