[Nature and culture meet in emotional communication]

According to the modern affect theory, the human being is equipped from birth with a number of affect programmes which can be activated both by internal and external signals and by the memory. According to theory, facial expressions constitute an important component of the affect programme. Research findings suggest the human being to be biologically programmed both to send and receive communications via facial expressions. Emotional communication seems to occur at an unconscious level, and to precede conscious information processing. There is scientific evidence that the emotional components of information processing are faster and occur in phylogenetically older brain structures. The right hemisphere appears to be more closely related than the left hemisphere to the autonomic nervous system, and thus more intimately linked with the physiological and automatic components of the emotions. Modern psychodynamic theory, in which emotion and unconscious processes are seen as human driving forces, derives scientific support from emotion research based both upon experimental psychology and neuroscience.