Communicative Social Intentions Modulate Emotional Mimicry Responses.

Area of Science:

• Social Psychology
• Affective Science
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Facial emotional expressions serve as crucial interactive signals conveying intentions.
• Previous studies indicate that sending an expression impacts the perception of responses, yet underlying mechanisms are not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the mechanisms by which sending a facial emotional expression influences the evaluation of subsequent response expressions.
• To examine the role of affiliative mechanisms and signal congruency in digital social interactions.

Main Methods:

• A preregistered experiment involving 68 participants who sent digital emojis (happy, neutral, angry) to a virtual agent.
• The agent responded with either a smiling or frowning facial expression.
• Measurements included valence and arousal ratings, and facial electromyography (EMG) of the Zygomaticus and Corrugator muscles to assess mimicry.

Main Results:

• Receiving a smile was rated as more pleasant and elicited greater Zygomaticus activation when it followed a happy emoji compared to an angry emoji.
• Receiving a frown was rated as less pleasant and increased Corrugator activity when it followed a happy emoji compared to an angry emoji.
• Sending an emoji activated facial muscles congruent with the emoji's valence, and participants were sensitive to the congruency between sender and receiver expressions.

Conclusions:

• Findings support the role of affiliative mechanisms in facial expression exchange and highlight sensitivity to signal congruency in social interactions.
• Physiological feedback may drive these effects, suggesting implications for both real-world and digital social interactions.
• The study dissects the communicative act from motor display in digital emotional expressions, enabling deeper probing of social interaction mechanisms.