The psychophysiology of disgust: differentiating negative emotional contexts with facial EMG

The goals of this study were (a) to examine differing views on the relationship between self-report of emotion and physiological expression of emotion, (b) to differentiate between negative emotional contexts during imagery using facial electromyogram (EMG), and (c) to describe the facial muscle patterning and autonomic physiology of situations that involve expelling or avoiding disgusting sensory stimulation. Fifty subjects imagined situations eliciting disgust, anger, pleasure, and joy in 8-s trials using a tone-cued imagery procedure. Heart rate, skin conductance level, and facial EMG at the corrugator, zygomatic, and levator labii superioris/alesque muscle regions were recorded during imagery, and self-reports of emotion were collected after imagery trials. Self-reports of emotion produced results consistent with the affective categorization of the images. Activity at the levator labii region was higher during disgust than during anger imagery. Corrugator region increase characterized the negative as compared with the positive emotional contents, and activity at the zygomatic region was higher during joy imagery than during the other three emotions. Heart rate acceleration was greater during disgust, anger, and joy imagery than during pleasant imagery. Disgust imagery could be discriminated from anger imagery using facial EMG, and the expressive physiology of disgust was occasioned by the action set of active avoidance or rejection of sensory stimulation.