Go to Paul Ekman's FACE Training website http://face.paulekman.com/default.aspx
review as you'd like, you can also review his main website http://www.paulekman.com/
For this post, scroll down to the bottom of the FACE Training site and complete the METT Demo. What was it like for you? How can you relate it to the science of emotion from chapters 11 and 12? How does/might it relate to motivation?
The demo was difficult for me initially because I had trouble interpreting the expressions because I think they were flashed too quickly. Once I had a good second to view them or if I could press the button to have the images held then I was able to successfully identify each emotion. Because I was able to do that, as well as I would think almost anyone could do the same, offers support for some of the concepts or ideas presented and explained in chapters eleven and twelve. The first of those ideas that comes to my mind is the ‘Differential Emotions Theory’, which includes the idea of ‘Unique Expression’, which states that “each emotion has its own unique facial-expressive pattern”. Another concept presented that I believe applies to the demo is ‘James-Lange Theory’, which states that emotional experience follows and depends on our bodily responses to the flashing lights and siren sounds, or that a stimulus occurs causing a bodily reaction, which then in-turn causes an emotion.
One more idea presented in chapter 11 that I believe applies to the demo is the question of ‘What is the difference between Emotion and Mood?’. There are three answers or differences provided to answer that question, and one of those is ‘different time course’, which states that “emotions emanate from short-lived events that last for seconds or minutes, whereas moods emanate from mental events that last for hours or days”. In the demo the reactions or emotions were presented so quickly, clearly suggesting that they only last for seconds, rather than for hours or days. The last idea/concept presented in chapter eleven that I believe applies to the demo is ‘Social Expressive’, which is the idea of “emotion’s communicative aspect”. The emotions that were presented during the demo were presented non-verbally, which is a form of social/facial-expression. Nonverbal-communication is sometimes more important or more impactful than verbal expression, and based on experience of seeing and interpreting it throughout the years, is why I was able to identify the emotions presented during the demo.
The demo relates to motivation in a few ways, the first one that comes to mind for me is through a concept presented in chapter twelve, ‘Social Interaction’, which states that “other people are typically our most frequent source of day-to-day emotion”. The concept further explains that emotions are intrinsic to interpersonal relationships, or that emotions intrinsically motivate human beings through interpersonal relationships. Another way that the demo relates to motivation is through another concept presented in chapter twelve, which I mentioned earlier, ‘Differential Emotions Theory’. One more postulate from the theory that I did not mention earlier is ‘unique purpose/motivation’, or the idea that each emotion generates distinctive motivational properties and serves adaptive functions.
The demo was interesting. I got 60% right when I took it. The first one I got lucky on, I didn’t realize that it would only flash the picture for a second then go back to its original form. Two of them gave me a hard time. When I could either re-watch the flash or hold it so I could really get a good look at it I got what emotion it was. It does show that there is a difference to each emotion, that they are not expressed in the same way. It’s usually easy to tell when someone is angry versus when they are happy or surprised.
I want to say that the Different Time Course is the most related to the demo. Each emotion any last for a short matter of time, just seconds. I believe that the demo is trying to show us just how short that time can be by only flashing the pictures. It shows just how quickly emotions can change.
Facial Feedback Hypothesis also jumps out. The demo is based off of reading peoples facial expression. There are the three ways to get the feedback, movements in the face, changes in the temperature (of the face), and changes in the glandular in the skin. It’s hard to tell if the person’s facial temperature went up just by seeing one snapshot, but when people start turning red that usually means either embarrassed or angry. Thanks to the feedback we get from the facial expression we are aware of what emotion this person is showing, and to that we can either run and hide or be happy with them.
Emotion Knowledge in chapter twelve is another thing. Growing up we learned or picked up on different emotions. As we grow older we start to put these emotions with facial expressions. It’s kind of like a mental picture. Seeing an expression and pinning an emotion to it. This helps us determine what the other person is feeling and gives us feedback.
The last one to pick out is social interaction. Others are our source of everyday emotions. We go through a greater number of emotions when we are with others then when we do alone. You can’t have an emotionless conversation with someone; there is some type of emotion there. When you are sad you are more likely to be motivated to go out and talk to someone. Do to your facial expression your friend or whom ever will read that feedback and they might become more motivated to talk.
I found the METT demo to be a little confusing. While watching the practice video of the guy differentiating between anger and disgust, I felt as thought the methods were effective. I was able to watch him make both expressions multiple times and point out noticeable differences between the two faces. The narration was also helpful. When I got to the excersise itself however, I found it to be much more difficult. I was not expecting the facial expression to flash that quickly. While I tried very hard to take quick mental images of eye and mouth movement, I found myself guessing on each of the expressions. I hate to admit it, but my score on the practice quiz was 0%. I would assume that more video training such as the one we were exposed to would help us recognize facial expressions more quickly. Though this was just a demo of the F.A.C.E. training techniques, I found myself unable to make any educated guesses or demonstrate any learning.
This relates to the facial musculature section of chapter twelve. The authors map out the muscles of a human face into a diagram that corresponds with emotion. When portraying fear, for example, the frontalis, or forehead, contracts and becomes wrinkled. The quadratus labii, or jaw, pulls the lip backwards and the orbicularis oculi raises the upper eyelids and tenses the lower eyelids. The narrator in the video gave a similiar description during the practice video. The idea of the FACE training is to allow us to notice these specific muscle movements and interpret them effectively. Cross-culturally, these facial expressions are consistent. I find it very interesting that the people used in the demonstration could have been from any culture around the world, yet I can still interpret their muscle movements accurately [at least after the image was frozen].
This relates to motivation because facial feedback is used as a socio-cultural means of communication to express emotion. The facial expressions tell others around them what emotion they are feeling. This can elicit others to act on these emotions, or elicit emotions within themselves. The emotion seen within these facial expressions can predict the behavior that the individual is about to emit, which is motivated by the emotion. As the textbook states, "Take away the emotion, and you take away the motivation".
For me it was very intersting to do the demo and then the quick quiz to see how quickly and accurately I could put an emotional label on a face I saw for less than a second. I only got 40% on the quiz but even then I had to repeat the exression to view it again and again. This relates to chapters eleven and twelve in many ways. It demonstrates perfectly the social-expressive side to emotions that are shown on the face (and voice) from chapter eleven. If a human can accurately obtain the person's emotion from their face they can tell a lot about them and the environment in which they are in. For instance, if a person flashed a surprized face, everyone around them would want to know what surprised them and would stop to look. If the person flashed a disgusted face, everyone would likely stay away from what ever disgusted the person, (also learned from chapter eleven within basic emotions). The more easily people can judge others emotions (accurately) via their face the better the social functions of emotions works. If a sad face is present it communicates feelings to others of sadness. It also influences how others should interact with us. For example if we lost a loved one, food would most likely be brought to us by our neighbors in a sort of "gathering" effort to support the sad person. If a happy face is flashed it is more likely to make others around them smile, because, being around positive people helps you to feel positive. From chapter twelve we leaved that we can differentiate emotions via their uniqueness (such as FACIAL EXPRESSIONS!) Facial expressions motivate people in many different ways. If someone looks extremely angry, we are motivated to leave that person the heck alone or even get away from them. If we, personally, are in a good mood, and we see someone sad drop all their things, we might feel motivated to help them. Motivation and emotion go hand in hand...you can't really have one without the other!
Initially I found the METT demo to be fairly interesting. I've done activities before where we had to figure out the emotion based on a facial expression but it did not go that quickly. With practice I got much more efficient at correctly assessing the emotion. The methods presented in the training portion of the exercise were interesting. This exercise made me think about the ways I try to hide my emotions in certain social situations. For example, when I am in public and find someone disgusting or see someone do something disgusting I make an attempt to hide my facial expressions in order to avoid disrespecting anyone. However, this exercise and the chapter really demonstrate how quickly a facial expression can happen after an emotion is felt (this is only one theory but this order is the one I prefer: significant event->appraisal->emotion). Therefore, it is unlikely that I am able to mask the my emotions within the first couple of seconds of feeling them.
I thought this exercise related to the area of chapter 11 that talked about social functions and emotions as a form of communicating. Even when reading the chapter I didn't really pay a lot of attention to that mechanism however when looking at the images in demo I could really understand how those expressions are a way to communicate. I then started to think about how people give each other a look that expresses how they are feeling. Like when they are not in a situation where they are able to say something they give a look to let the other person know what they are thinking. I really liked this and think that people communicate with their faces more than we realize. One example of this for me was late in my undergraduate study I figured out that I must have a look on my face when I'm thinking about something. There were a couple of classes that I really liked and I found that everytime I was in-depth thinking about something and trying to apply it my professors would call on me and ask me was I thought or what I was thinking. Initially this took me off guard but after a while I figured out that I was apparently making some indication with my face about what I was thinking....since then I've tried to control it a bit more. But I do think that this demonstrates how we are often unaware of what we are doing with our face.
The section of chapter 12 that this demo clearly tapped into was the Facial Feedback Hypothesis, the section on the muscles in the face, and the section on reading and interpreting facial expressions (okay I guess that's a big chunk of the chapter). The book does present some pictures that depict different expressions so this directly tied into exactly what the demo was trying to do. I thought that the training of the demo touched a lot on the facial musculature section of the chapter. This section suggests that when we feel certain emotions is causes a reaction in the muscles in our face. We have become so aware of these reactions that we are now able to identify what a person is feeling by the look on their face.
Overall, I think that the research on this is very interesting and I also like how we have learned how to use these theories in practice. For example, authorities can use some of this as evidence for criminal activity or other areas of assessing peoples emotions as they relate to behavior.
I did not score high at all on the practice test of the METT. It was definitely difficult to determine the emotion expressed in that short amount of time. I think the whole concept is interesting. Just looking at the facial expressions for a split second and learning exactly what to look for would be a great idea for identifying those that are tying to surpress their emotions and/or hide their emotions. At first I was thinking that the facial expressions in the METT test were far too extreme for reality. In those professions where you would have to identify if someone is hiding the truth this could be helpful. Although the facial expressions on this test seem more exaggerated than what you might see in a interrogation room that specialist will probably more accurate at detecting the slightest changes in the face structure and then determine what that change could have meant.
I believe that this could be valid training in order to improve one’s accuracy with quickly being able to determine an individual’s emotions. Being able to quickly identify the exact changes in the structure is important because emotions are brief anyways and especially is they are hiding something. This relates to motivation because the information we can learn about an individual’s emotions will lead us to their motives and determining one’s motives is very important when trying to solve a criminal case (career) or determining if someone close to you is lieing. This is a good example of looking at someone’s emotions to get a “readout.” As chapter 11 explains this readout allows there to be a status check, is everything good or are they experiencing a discrepancy? Often times we can read others status by their nonverbal communication, this is behavior as a social function. And because that individual is trying to alter their facial expression they understand the social function. They do not for whatever reason want their private emotions to become exposed. Viewing it from the biological perspective this METT test it is counting on the innate process to occur. It is counting you your facial expression to reveal clues to your true emotions before you are cognitively aware that this will affect your well-being.
After completing the METT Demo, I could not help bu think of the definition given in Ch. 11 about emotion that states: "emotions are short-lived, feeling-arousal-purposive-expressive phenomena that help us adapt to opportunities and challenges we face during important life events". This is because the emotions we saw on the people's faces were extremely "short-lived'. I understand that the quick reaction is a product of the test, but that definition came to mind.
I actually was pretty good my first time, scoring an 80%. I was confused that the emotion was the quick flash at first, but once I understood this it seemed to be pretty easy. This test made me think of the importance of emotion and social functioning. By being able to read others' emotions we not only will be able to more readily identify different emotions within ourselves, but it also helps us create, maintain, and dissolve relationships, invite and facilitate social interactions, influence how others interact with us, and communicate functioning.
The test also made me think of emotion knowledge which is the cognitive function of being able to discriminate between different shades of emotion within a single emotion. The more we are able to identify emotions the better we will become at managing them within ourselves and socially. This will help with better adaptation to our environment as well.
I did this test while at work and found it to be rather fun. I engaged some of my co-workers and found it amusing that the people who were unable to identify the emotions would get frustrated and want to do it more. I think this served as a motivating factor, because the worse people were at identifying, the harder and more persistent they would become during the next test. I think trying to read emotion is motivating to people because it brings about greater awareness and social connection.
I thought doing this training was interesting but confusing to me at the same time. I felt that the expressions were flashed way too quickly and I don’t see how anyone could be able to recognize them. Once I was able to see the expression, I almost always got it right. One’s that were similar were anger and contempt. I noticed on the website that the show Lie to Me was mentioned. I used to watch that show weekly and loved it. I think it’s pretty amazing how people can be trained in reading people’s emotions just by what their body language is showing. It would be difficult to remember all the emotions and facial expressions that match.
This demo is similar to what is present in the book and in class when said that if a something has a specific facial expression, then it can be considered an emotion. It also relates to the social-cultural aspect of emotions. Emotions are an important part in relating to society and face/body expressions are a large way that we do that. This all relates to motivation because our emotions direct our behavior. If we’re scared, we do what’s necessary to feel safe again. If we’re happy, we continue to repeat that behavior to feel happy again. Although the chapters about social, physiological, and psychological needs stressed that these three needs are our primary motivators, chapters 11 and 12 explain that some believe that emotions are our primary motivators. This is because emotions are complex and affect our physiological state, how we communicate to others (by facial/voice expressions), and our subjective experiences.
I went through the demo and immediately missed the first two. I was not prepared for them to flash that fast, and it was difficult for me to catch the expressions that quickly. On both of those two I replayed it and got them after a couple times. After all of the expressions, I held them so I could get a better look at them. The final three I was able to get correct on the first try. After doing this, I wondered why I need to be able to see an emotion that quickly and why this is helpful to me. I found that information under the micro expressions tab on the website. This says that being able to identify emotions so quickly helps you to better understand people who are trying to conceal their emotions and helps people to spot lies. I’m glad they offered this explanation, but I admit I still question the importance and helpfulness of being able to identify an emotion in 1/15 to 1/25 of a second.
These are obviously emotions, and they represent how the person is feeling about a situation, satisfied or unsatisfied. This would motivate change in the person if they are unsatisfied with their situation or it would motivate them to continue on in the same path if they are satisfied. Emotions are a type of motive, and it definitely makes sense that they work so well together.
I also saw the points made by the differential emotion theory. The emotions listed as options were primary emotions, and we saw that each emotion had a unique facial expression and unique feeling. Though these clips are staged, we know that in normal events these emotions would have a purpose and would motivate a change in behavior to create a better emotion or would motivate a person to continue on in that behavior to keep a favorable emotion.
This demo also made me think of the facial feedback hypothesis. It made me question the strong version, which is still not proven by research. I wonder if after making these facial expressions for the camera they felt more like that emotion than they had with a neutral expression. For example, I wonder if the person that made an angry face felt angrier with that facial expression compared to their neutral expression.
So, I thought this demo was kind of cool. It was fun to try to get the image correct. I did pathetic on it because the emotions flashed by too fast. It was hard to tell what expression it was. Having the freeze frame thing greatly improved my ability to get the emotion right. This demo can be explained by some concepts in our book that can be found in chapters 11 and 12.
I would like to say that the James-Lange theory was somehow used here, but I don’t think it would work as well as other concepts. James-Lange theory claims that emotional experiences follow and depend upon our bodily responses. I don’t think it was used because there didn’t seem to be any stimuli in the environment for the people’s emotions. Therefore, they probably just made the faces on command. From making these movements, they were actually using the facial feedback hypothesis. It stipulates that the movement of the face muscles actually produces the associated feelings of emotion. So the participants probably began to feel like their made face. This demo also incorporated the differential emotions theory. This theory explains that emotions are unique in regards to their feeling, expression, neural activity, and purpose/motivation. The only aspect we can see as a viewer is the expression, but it does adequately show that each emotion has its own unique facial pattern. Since these participants were proboly told to make faces representing emotions, two social theories can be used. One is social interaction. I say this because they interacted with people and the interaction produced emotion. The second one is emotional socialization. They were told to make a face that represents an emotion. They could have used these faces because they were taught that they correlated to their given emotion.
Chapter 12 worked well with the demo, but chapter 11 had some useful concepts as well. I would say the demo keeps in touch with the biological aspect of emotion when it comes to the number of them. The demo seems to have the basic universal emotions, and leaves out the other ones. It also takes side with the biological perspective in how emotions are experienced. The demo is all about facial musculature, and it doesn’t recognize any possible cognitive activy.
The demo on the Paul Ekman website was moderately difficult to me at first because I had a hard time distinguishing between similar emotions such as disgust and contempt. Both of these emotions seem very similar to me when comparing people facial reaction. The rest of the emotions and facial expressions displayed on the website were very easy to distinguish from the rest. I do not consider myself very good at reading facial expressions so this leaves me to believe that is is a very easy task to accomplish for an average person. The website expands on this by stating that not every person has the same visual activity so not everyone can reach the same level of profeciency. The concepts covered on this website relates to Chapter 12 in the textbook in several ways. The first is the facial feedback hypothesis. The facial feedback hypothesis is defined as the subjective aspect of emotion that stems from feelings endered by movements of the faical musculature, changes in facial temperature, and changes in glandular activity in the facial skin. According to this website, all emotions are shown in some sort of facial expression. The definition for these expressions that the website uses in micro expressions. Micro expressions are defined as very brief facial expressions that are nearly invisible to people who aren't trained in how to recognize them. This website also argues that facial expressions are very important in measuring a persons emotions. The topics discussed in this website relate to motivation because of the relation of facial expressions to emotion. Emotion is defined in Chapter 11 as a mulitdimentional, complex feeling that make us feel a particular way but are also reactions that prepare the body for adapting to whatever situation one faces. These emotions help to motivate an individual to accomplish whatever their current emotions are motivating them towards. Overall, this website appears to have a over emphasized value of facial expressions in personality and emotion compared to all other theories and approaches.
I found it hard to notice the som emotins because they were too fast but when they were slowed down or I looked at them a second time it was almost automatic what I knew it was. It demonstartes how it helps to have the social context availavle because you know what your are looking for in micro expressions. It was a little bit hard for me to realize that one with the girl was smiling beacuse it was a side type smile and just did not seem sincre, there is this neat website that tests ability to gage the sincerity of emotions and what was weird was that women tended to do a better job. I think it was a british web site that showed a lot of differences between gender. I tend to focus on peoples eyebrows for emotions so when people have them drawn on it defintiely throws me off. I even read an article that certain expressions are heriditary which makes sense since we do inheirt what we look like from out parents. The weirdest article was that certain smiles equate with life long happiness as others dont, if people smile and there eyes crinkle up in the corners than they are genuinely happy and research showed that they lived happier lives as oppossed to people with very cold smiles that looked forced.
This demo was an interesting experience. I scored 80% on the practice test. My tendency was to watch one aspect of the face, not the whole thing. This is why I didn't correctly label the "fear" face. It took me a couple tries to get it right (once I froze the expression). It just shows how one extra aspect of the face can make the difference between two emotions. This demo shows how bodily arousal and being socially-expressive can determine an emotion. Also, the short-lived time the expression was on the face factors into the emotion. The facial expressions can motivate you to feel a certain way or to motivate you to make that same facial expressions (I tended to do that when I was going through the test); this is an example of emotional contagion. This is explained by how emotions act as social functions by communicating feelings and how others interact with them. This test also coincides with the Differential Emotions Theory in that each emotion has its own unique feeling, expression, and purpose. The facial feedback hypothesis also goes along with this test as it states that subjective aspect of emotion stems from feelings engendered by movements of facial musculature, changes in facial temperature, and changes in glandular activity in facial skin. Emotion knowledge is the number of different emotions any one person can distinguish (through experience). By taking this test, I now know that I have quite a bit of emotion knowledge. Social interaction is definitely effected by facial expressions. Finally, social sharing of emotion can happen through reexperiencing and reliving past emotional experiences.
I really liked this METT demo! However, it was pretty difficult for me and I definitely did not get a high score. I received 20% as my practice score. The first emotion I got right but on the other four it took me two tries on each one to guess the right emotion. It really threw me off that the girl who was expressing happiness only smiled with one half of her mouth so when it flashed quickly the first time I thought it was contempt! This can definitely be related to the information in our text regarding emotion AND motivation since emotion is one thing that motivates and directs our behaviors. In particular, this activity supports the Differential Emotions Theory which states that each emotion has its own unique facial expressive pattern. This was demonstrated quite well in this exercise.
Another connection with the text can be made in the section regarding Facial Feedback Hypothesis. This hypothesis states that the subjective aspects of emotion stem from feelings that come from movements of the facial muscles as well as from facial temperature and changes in glandular activity in the skin of the face. This hypothesis gives support to the claim that facial muscles react first to emotion and that can cause the brain to interpret the stimulation and respond accordingly. Ekman uses these “microseconds” of displayed facial expressions to get to the truth about an individual’s emotion especially in the circumstance of trying to decide whether someone is telling the truth.
Another important item to note from the demonstration was that a diverse group of individual faces were used in the demo. This supports the information in our text regarding universal facial expressions across cultures. Research has shown that emotion-related facial behavior is the same across cultures and that it has an innate and unlearned component to it. This was true for this demo because determining which facial expression was being displayed was not any harder to discern on an African American face versus a Caucasian one.
The demo was very interesting. I wasn’t sure how the process really worked so I was anxious to see how many questions there were and how fast the process went. I ended up getting a 60% on my first try. I wasn’t prepared for the image to change for a split second so I missed the first one. Of course, it was much easier to hold down the F button the freeze the image to see for more than a split second what the expression was. Overall, I thought the demo was challenging and educational at the same time.
This demo relates to a topic in Chapter 11 which discusses the question “what good are emotions?” One of the functions emotions serve relates to social experiences. Emotions communicate our feelings to others, influence how other people interact with us, invite and facilitate social interaction, and create/maintain relationships with other people. This got me thinking about times when I give my parents the ‘evil eye’ and they completely understand what it is I’m trying to say without actually having to say it aloud. Also, they know not to talk to me in any great length about my facial expression because more often than not I’m not too pleased with something going on at that time. Once I was able to freeze the images, I could definitely tell what type of emotion they were expressing. How we present our emotions definitely has an effect on how people interact with us, whether they want to interact with us, and how they understand what we’re trying to communicate to them .
This demo relates to Chapter 12’s section called the Facial Feedback Hypothesis which talks about facial musculature, reading people’s facial expressions, whether or not facial expressions are universal across cultures, and whether or not people can voluntarily control their emotions. During the demo, I had to attempt to read people’s facial expressions and keep choosing expression until I got the matchup right. The chapter talks about how people’s facial muscles react differently when people feel different emotions. People have become more and more aware of other people’s reactions to the emotions they experience to the point where we can guess what the other person is feeling just by looking at their facial expression—crazy!!!
Emotions relate to motivation in a sense that emotions function as one type of motive. Some researchers argue that emotions are the primary motivational system in people. The facial feedback hypothesis I just talked about is a good example of how emotions relate to motivation. People’s facial expressions communicate to others what they are feeling which could potentially draw out certain emotions of behaviors of the other person. Chapter 11 uses an example of air deprivation to illustrate this relationship. Assuming that emotions are motivations, the emotional reaction of fear from not getting air is what makes the person motivated to act. At the end of the second in Chapter 11 page 302 it states, “Take away the emotion, and you take away the motivation.”
I actually thought that reading about Paul Ekman’s career was pretty interesting and he is a very accomplished psychologist. The METT training was interesting because of the fact that the faces were flashed on the screen so quickly. I was surprised that it went so fast and didn’t get use to the speed for the first couple expressions. I thought that some of them were nearly impossible to see without repeatedly seeing it and I actually had to hold down the freeze frame button for one of the expressions. I did get the last two emotions right on my first guess, so this may say something about practice effects (getting used to the speed of the display). I also thought that it was somewhat hard because the emotion contempt was on the list to choose from, and I have no clear distinction of what the emotion of contempt looks like as an expression on a person’s face. If I had to choose another word to describe what contempt looks like I guess I would say calm. I even double checked the facial muscle figure in the book and there was no description of how contempt is portrayed.
The video that was shown is clearly related to the facial feedback hypothesis that is discussed in chapter 12. The chapter talks about facial musculature in quite a bit of detail and the video similarly described some of the facial muscle movement that happened during the expression of anger. I thought that it was funny how they said that the person on the left had their mouth open because they were probably saying something mean. The basic negative and positive emotions were present in the choices: fear, anger, sadness, disgust, joy (happy), and surprise. I think that it is interesting that they added another negative emotion such as contempt, negative according to Izard, and not the emotion of interest which is often brought up in the literature.
From what was available on the website it is hard to make any connections to the types of appraisals or social and cultural aspects of the emotions. I think that it would be really neat to see what type of material the full METT training program goes into and whether or not it matches up with the information that we have read in these chapters.
This video was somewhat annoying to me. I do not understand how a millisecond of seeing someone fake an emotion was supposed to immediately cue me in on the emotion as well. I could understand just seeing a facial expression and clicking what emotion I though it evoked. Or watching a small video clip of a person interacting with someone else. It is second nature for us to be able to recognize those basic emotions the METT demo showed.
As discussed in Chapter 11, emotions, and what they look like, have a lot of social value to them. We can tell when a person is mad, sad, or happy and then we can act accordingly. Without this ability, socializing would be near impossible or at the least, completely frustrating. I think if emotions were showed as quick as they were in this METT demo, I would die of anxiety. We do not pay close enough attention to our peers to catch a glimpse like that.
This website also touched on Chapter 12, and the facial feedback concept. Which discusses watching the movement of facial muscles, changes in facial temperature and changes in glandular activity. One huge key to look for one trying to depict an expression is the eyebrow muscles and how they move. The book also mentions how facial expressions are universal across cultures and the METT demo did a good job of switching the example people's races. It is beneficial that these emotions are cross culturally accepted because we all will experience situations where maybe an emotion is the only form of communication.
The last topic I want to mention is the idea of controlling our emotions. We can all clearly accept these emotions were forced. The feelings experience cannot be forced but we all know how to make the "face" associated with certain feelings. To me, besides knowing that had to be, these emotions were too forced and too fake. In a way they were over-exaggerated and that is just annoying to see!!
The demo was pretty hard the first time that I took it. They didn’t show the facial expressions for a long enough time for me to even recognize what most of the faces were. For almost all of the faces that were shown I guessed the first time I took the demo practice training. It was hard for me to determine the difference between a surprised look and a look of fear. It would seem like it would take a really good eye to be able to recognize some of the faces. I ended up getting a 60% the first time that I took the demo quiz. One thing that I realized after taking the quiz was that there are only seven emotions that are listed as options. I know that these are the main emotions, but there are many more that could have been put on the demo. I wonder if the people who actually go through this training learn many more emotions or if they only learn how to identify the seven that are on the demo.
When the website demonstrated what to look for in an angry face it was interesting to me that the faces looked different to me at first. Once the person explained that there are certain things on the face that do certain things when the person is feeling and showing that one emotion I could see how the faces were the same. The eyebrows and the eyes make the same movements. The only movement in the face on the angry example that was different between the two faces was the way the mouth was shaped.
Facial expressions help us to communicate to other people how we are feeling. Our emotions also let us know how we are feeling. This is very important because if we didn’t have emotions we would be very boring people. Emotions motivate us to do certain things. If we are happy we are more apt to be more social and want to do things. If we are sad or mad we may not be as sociable or fun to be around. Emotions play a very big part in our lives and help to motivate us to do certain things in life.
For me the demo of METT was very complicated because I did not time identifying expressions correctly. In my opinion to ring success with the demo you need to have previous experience in the recognition of expressions, because a subtle change in facial expression can mean an emotion or different. The demo I found very interesting and feel like repeating. The relationship of this exercise as seen in Chapter 12 has to do with the theory james - lange. According to this theory the position of the facial muscles results that showed an expression or another. It also counts as every expression is related to a particular body state, ie for example the sadness you describe with a low heart rate, low brain activity .... The relationship that reflects our emotions is our emotion is evident, for example, show a serious face cause our negative affect will increase and that our motivation wane. On the contrary, if our emotions are positive, our motivation will be higher. The show also influences our emotions in our relationship with others, for example if our face is serious others may think they are angry with them and be more hostile to us, however if you smile people will feel more comfortable with us and we will have a better relationship with others.
I found that I was very good at reading emotions and scored an 80%. Unfortunately, my computer chose the second face for me, but I probably would have gotten it wrong anyways because it took me two additional tries. It was the face for surprise. I didn’t know how well I would do with how quick it flashed, but surprised myself (notice the emotion I could not read well!).
Since emotions are short lived I can see why they were flashed across the screen so quickly. Emotions occur as a result of a significant event and we need to identify these emotions quickly in ourselves and others. Looking at the biological responses to emotion, it is amazing how quickly the body processes the emotions to coordinate the many different bodily responses.
I am in Organizational Psychology right now and have workplace issues on the brain, but understanding emotions would be extremely important to identify in workers, or in any social situations. Let’s say in a social situation I begin talking about a car accident I saw on the news. I don’t realize that it is a family member of one the persons in the group. When the person begins to show signs of sadness, I need to recognize that emotion and interpret it correctly. This understanding would motivate me to change the subject or make sure it ok to continue to talk about. In the workplace, as a manager, I would need to identify emotions, especially anger, in order to plan a specific motivational strategy for work effectiveness.
Another important concept from chapter 11 is that emotions happen for a reason and serves as a coping function. Since there are no bad emotions, they motivate us to take some form of action. Seeing and comprehending a facial expression of fear on someone else, might motivate us to not go around the corner, or enter the bank at that time. It could ensure survival!
The most important thing to remember is that we all have emotions and they serve a function. If I say “happy birthday” to a friend, and I can identify by their expression that they are happy, it will motivate me to do it again next year. However, emotions can also sometimes come out at inopportune times. If we cannot manage our emotions, we will never be able to hold a job, or maintain relationships. We learn at a young age that managing our emotions gives us or keeps things we want, which is a form of extrinsic motivation.
ME terms used: emotion, social functions, sadness, anger, coping function, fear, happy, extrinsic motivation.
The METT training video was interesting. It shows how subtle differences in your facial expressions can make a huge difference in what your nonverbal are saying. When I took the test I got a 20 percent. I found it hard to judge the facial expressions in such a short time period especially since they expressions were not very clear. Even when I would freeze the frame I had trouble trying to figure out what one was.
Chapter 12 shows how each muscle in our faces helps move certain parts of our face and when when put certain ones together it makes an emotion/feeling. It lets people know what you are thinking or how you feel at that particular moment. Facial expressions are universal so no matter where you are people will be able to know your emotion by reading you face and they wont even have to talk to you.
I think facial expressions relate to motivation in many ways. First, how you are feeling can motivate you to do things. If you are surprised you may be motivated to defend yourself or if your bored you may be motivated to explore. Secondly, other people facial expressions can motivate you. If you see someone who is angry you are motivated to stay away from them or if you see someone who is distressed you can be motivated to see what is wrong and help them. If someone looks disgusted when you ask them a questions you are motivated to not talk anymore and walk away.
I thought this demo was very interesting because the quickness of the face being presented spoke to the unconscious reaction in my mind about the face without making me focus too much on what the face could mean. Similar to previous studies done about facial expression, I assume the quickness of the faces flashing ensures actual not inferred reactions to the facial expression. This reminds me a lot of the implicit attitudes test ( https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/ ) where attitudes are associated with characteristics like (old vs. young, asian vs. white, etc.) This allows people to see if they have unconscious prejudices again different diverse people. However, in the FACE training the information pertained to emotion instead of physical characteristics.
This demo relates to emotion in that emotion is a social construct that communicates information to people in the surrounding area. After a significant event, a facial expression is presented that conveys an emotion to others. As we talked about in class, this may communicate that something is ours (anger), poisonous (disgust), etc. While learning to become a counselor, and as noted in many psychology classes, non-verbal behavior (including facial expression) is at least 50% of our communication everyday. Thus, having the capability to quickly assess a situation by facial expression is very beneficial for humans. Responding to and displaying facial expressions like these encourage others and ourselves to act accordingly in a given situation.
The F.A.C.E. Training by Dr. Paul Ekman was interesting. When completing the METT Demo I scored 20%. I found it difficult to interpret the facial expressions in such a short amount of time. Often times I did not even register that the face had moved, all I saw was a flash of the screen. It almost seemed like the screen simply refreshed. However, I completely understand why it happens so quickly and the point that Dr. Paul Ekman is trying to make with this. I felt that it was a valuable exercise.
It relates to chapter 11 and 12 by looking at how many emotions are there. It is relatively easy to see how main emotions can be seen and indentified, but also the sheer number variations on each emotion are incredible. There are several small changes or slightly differing facial features that can be categorized as different emotions.
Chapter 12 really helps us better understand and identify these emotions from a biological and physiological sense. Emotion underlies everything that we do. The piece in chapter 12 about facial musculature explains what is happening beneath the surface as we explore each emotion.
There are 8 muscles that are shown in the textbook, and from that we are able to ascertain the majority of the facial movements indicating five primary emotions. These emotions include anger, fear, disgust, sadness, and joy. Relating this idea to what we have experienced in the METT Demo, we can observe the following actions and link them to each emotion. Anger is associated with drawn in eyebrows in and down, tense lower eyelids upward, and presses lips firmly together. Fear looks at contraction, producing forehead wrinkles, raised inner corners of eyebrows, raised upper eyelids, tense lower eyelids, and pulled lips backwards. Disgust is seen as a wrinkled nose, raised cheeks, and a raised upper lip. Sadness is seen as inner corners of eyelids that are raised and drawn together, upper inner corner of eyelids that are raised, and corners of lips that are pulled down. Finally Joy is relaxed, showing wrinkles below the eyes, corners of lips that are pulled back and up, raised cheeks, and crow’s feet below eyes.
Al of this ties into motivation because understanding someone’s emotions is a likely way to understand their motivation.
This exercise was different than most things we do in this class but I really enjoyed it. It was very easy to locate the demo and understand how to answer the questions. The only thing that I was surprised about was how quickly the pictures flashed. It seemed like less than half of one second was the time we had to interpret the emotion, which seemed a little too quickly. The first one really took me off guard but I selected the right answer anyways. I got 80% on the practice test but would have really like to take a real test with more questions because I found this exercise very fun and interesting.
The obvious connection between this exercise and chapters 11 and 12 is the differential emotions theory. This theory simply states that every emotion has its own unique facial expression. Once I understood and looked back on this exercise, they definitely used very unique and obvious facial expressions to demonstrate the particular emotions and it helped to better demonstrate this theory.
The facial feedback hypothesis is also very prominent in this exercise. It is defined in the book as the subjective aspect of emotion that stems from feelings endured by movements of the facial musculature, changes in facial temperature and changes in glandular activity in the facial skin. This is clearly the concept expressed in this activity because the different facial expressions are the focus, and the tool used to express and explain emotion.
And lastly I want to briefly mention its connection to mood. Mood might not be exactly what the website is trying to express, but moods are short in duration, just as the pictures we were shown were. I relate this to myself in the way that when I burn my hand on the stove or a hot pan, my facial structure changes to express my feeling or mood associated to burning myself. The mood that it puts me in is very short lived, but using facial recognition can be a great way to better understand the different situations that cause different emotions.
Blog on 3/31/11 on Paul Ekman’s FACE & chapter 12
In looking at Paul Ekman’s web page and the METT demo, I learned that METT stands for micro expression training tool. It was very interesting to learn that the METT research began with schizophrenics and determining the feelings of others and now this scientific research is used as the basis for the TV show Lie to Me.
As I began the METT demo and I was looking at the first picture I thought there was a problem with my computer because I didn’t see any change, at all! I pushed the button again and I might have seen a flash of change in the region of the mouth but I could not tell what or how so I guessed at an answer and it was wrong. I guessed again and it too was wrong, it took four guesses before I got it right. I tried the next picture and got it wrong as well. By the end of the demo my score was 60% and I was disappointed
According to chapter twelve emotions have four aspects of: feelings, arousal, purpose and expression. Most researchers agree that some facial expressions are innate and some are learned as Ekman’s studies point out in the text. Ekman states that some emotions just happen to us involuntarily and his website states that micro expressions are evident in facial expressions for 1/15th-1/25th of a second before any emotion is felt.
As I compare this to chapter twelve’s Facial Feedback Hypothesis it is the subjective aspect of emotion stemming from feelings that are engrained in the movement of facial muscles, in facial temperature as well as changes in glandular activity in the skin of the face. This supports the perspective that emotional responses are located in the face and are automatically or involuntarily reacting to emotion; at least initially to some degree. The Differential Emotions Theory that identifies 10 emotions states that a unique facial pattern as well as a specific rate of neural firing is probably identifiable for the same micro expressive (1/25) second that Ekman’s website refers to.
Terms: FACE training, METT demo, four aspects of emotions: feelings arousal, purpose, expression, Facial Feedback Hypothesis, Differential Emotions Theory, facial expressive pattern, neural firing.
Seeing the METT demo was very interesting. I didn’t catch the first emotion because I didn’t realize it would flash so quickly. I ended up getting 60% because I learned to watch between the eyes and the mouth to try and catch the emotion in such a short time period. This demo relates to chapters 11 and 12 in many ways. Chapter 11 talks about emotions having four parts: feeling, arousal, purpose, and expression. Obviously the social component of emotion is communicating with others through facial expression. Chapter 11 also discusses the biological perspective applied to infants. It shows that emotions happen to us, we act emotionally even before we are consciously aware of that emotionality. The facial recognition on the METT methods could be used to quickly pick up a person’s true emotions before they are consciously able to conceal them. Much of Chapter 12 applies to the demo. Differential emotions theory says that each emotion has its own unique facial-expressive pattern. This is clearly demonstrated on the FACE training site. One part of the facial feedback hypothesis is the movements of the facial musculature. It argues that sensations from the face feed back to the cortical brain to produce the emotional experience. Some facial feedback is learned, but the facial feedback hypothesis says that facial behavior also has a genetic innate component and is therefore cross-culturally universal. This demo and facial feedback relates to motivation in many ways. Our text says that emotions evolved because they helped animals deal with fundamental life tasks. The emotion that arises during an important life task serves a goal-directed purpose that has coping and social purposes. How well emotions serve us depends on how well we are able to regulate our emotions. Social interactions are full of emotions. We need to be able to read others emotions to better serve them in a relationship. We also need to express emotions in order to tell others what we want and need.
I thought Paul Ekman's FACE Training website was very interesting! I only scored 60% when I completed the METT Demo. I was fascinated by Paul Ekman's company and am interested in learning more about micro-expressions. The first thing that came to mind when connecting the reading assignment from the textbook to what I learned from the FACE Training website was facial feedback hypothesis and facial musculature. There are so many expressions a person can make that it is amazing that with all the different cultures we have in the world that facial feedback for certain expressions is something that has been found to be in common with people all around the world. Facial expressions are definitely relevant as a social function. It is important for everyone to be able to recognize the emotions that certain facial expressions mean. It can be incredibly beneficial to be knowledgeable about micro-expressions to be able to respond appropriately in any social situation as well as to learn to be aware of your own body language to be an effective communicator yourself. Being able to read people well can be related to motivation in many ways. Everyone can benefit from having a glimpse as to how others are feeling. Professionals can use micro-expressions as a way to maximize the time they spend with investors, employers, employees, competitors, contractors, co-workers, and customers. It can be especially useful for those involved in law enforcement and within personal relationships. The FACE Training is now on my to do list!
I thought the demo was sort of hard, and honestly didn’t do very well the first couple of times. The faces kind of flashed by quickly so it was hard to read what emotion they were. Once I was able to freeze the emotion, I could usually get it right away. Each emotion tends to make a distinct facial expression that goes along with it.
Doing this activity reminded me of the “Four Components of Emotion” that was talked about in Chapter 11. These four components were: feelings, bodily arousal, sense of purpose, and social-expressiveness. The one that most relates to this activity is “social expressiveness”. The book states that it is through this “social expressiveness” (postures, gestures, vocalizations, and facial expressions) that our private experiences become public. This happens when others are able to read our body language and facial expressions and can tell what emotion we are feeling at that moment.
Another thing it reminded me of was the James-Lange theory talked about in Chapter 12. This theory states that our body reacts uniquely to different nonemotion-eliciting events. So when a certain event happens that makes us sad, angry, distressed, happy, etc. are body is going to react accordingly and part of that is the change in facial expression. I also thought of the Differential Emotions theory. This theory has 5 different things it follows. One of these is that we have unique expressions. This means that each emotion has its own unique facial-expressive pattern.
In some ways it could relate to motivation if someone wanted to be careful of showing their emotion around others. If they didn’t want other people to know how they were feeling/what they were going through, they might be motivated to change how they were feeling so it didn’t reflect on their face.
So, when compared to the activity we did before, each emotion we go through is going to reflect through our facial expressions. This different facial expressions are the same for each emotion and for each person. They don’t change from person-to-person, but are able to be recognized no matter who it is.
The METT demo was interesting. I got like 60% because it was hard to see the facial expressions in such a quick flash. I watched the videos on the other website and I guess when you study facial expressions you really can distinguish between them in a quick flash. I watched the short video on micro expressions. They are the point of learning how to notice the flash of expressions. They can be difficult to notice to the untrained eye. For someone who is trained, it is helpful in recognizing when someone is not being truthful. This is helpful in court or other law enforcement environments. Facial expressions of emotion are universal and Ekman uses the same 6 universal emotions that Darwin came up with which are joy, anger, sadness, surprise, fear, disgust, and contempt. He found that facial expressions for emotions are universal in a study of an isolated community which I saw on one of the websites and is also in the text. These differ from our text where the basic emotions are joy, anger, sadness, disgust, fear, and interest. Although Ekman uses Darwin’s 6 basic emotions, he has specific names for other emotions that can be seen through facial expressions like interest which is one from the text.
Ekman talks about the reflex of facial expressions from emotions as being an innate ability. We see this in babies. They cry when they are uncomfortable or hurt which is a good way to communicate to others. The innateness is also seen in blind people. Blind people have the same facial expressions for the same emotions as everyone else even though they have never seen these expressions before. Facial expressions are very social and sometimes we do them without noticing. The micro expressions of lying individuals may not be noticed by the individual or others who have not been trained to recognize it. There is a section in the text in chapter 12 that discusses if we can voluntarily control our emotions. The text explains (and cites Ekman) that some emotions just happen to us and escape our control from a biological standpoint. From a cognitive view, however, if we can control our thoughts, beliefs, and ways of thinking, we can control our emotions to a certain point.
This recognition of lying makes me wonder how far the study of micro expressions goes. Are you better able to recognize peoples’ true social intentions if completed F.A.C.E. training? There was one example of people waiting in line at airport security and how to spot someone suspicious. People usually are looking around but if someone’s head is down that could be suspicious although it isn’t always. The example given was that the man with his head down was in grief because his brother had just passed. That example is more about body stature but the idea is the same. Can trained people infer what another person is intending by their facial expression?
I would guess that this is not possible in many situations. In legal settings this technique could be very useful such as in interrogation or in court but I don’t know how helpful it could be in day to day interactions. Also, emotions do not just affect facial expressions. If facial expressions are studied, I think body movement and positions and voice also need to be studied by the same people. I don’t believe that we can rely on facial expressions to tell us everything we need to know but it is a very interesting topic.
This was interesting website. It was pretty difficult to see the face. The first time I scored a 60% but I took it a second time and got a 80%.
This made me think about chapter 11 that the social component of emotion is the communicative aspect. This includes facial expressions. When I looked at the pictures some of them were pretty obvious trying to show a specific emotion but some of them were difficult because they are somewhat similar such as angry, contempt, fear, disgust or even surprise. They are only slight variances and I'm sure they differ by individuals. Such as in the training video I am not sure that I open mouth when I am disgusted, but I probably furrow my brow as it was shown. I noticed in the book it speaks about Paul Ekman but he actually does not include surprise as a distinct emotion but it was one of the facial expressions we were tested on. I also hadn't realized before reading chapter 12 that our facial expressions can be our body coping or preparing itself.
This is also relates the Differential emotions theory that each emotion has its own unique facial-expressive pattern. I would guess that each person has differences between each facial expression but that everyone might not have the same exact facial expressions for the same emotions.
This training also makes me wonder if the models for the different emotions felt and emotion activation for the emotion they were facially expressing. That would be pretty interesting to find out.
The METT demo was actually pretty difficult. Face expressions are easy enough to see and distinguish usually, but only seeing a short flash of an expression was particularly difficult. After I repeated and froze the shot I was able to pick the right answer each time. Many expressions can be distinguished just by either the movement of the mouth or even the eyebrows. A slight rise or fall of the eyebrows makes the face make an entirely different expression. This activity reflects Chapter 11 in that our expressions serve as social functions. Not matter what culture or region of the world a person is from, certain expressions are universal. We use our facial expressions to communicate our feelings to others and how people will in turn react to that emotion. The site also backs up the research that there are 2-10 basic emotions. More specifically there are six: fear, anger, distrust, sadness, joy, and interest which the study helped show that it’s easy to point out these basic emotions. In comparison to chapter 12 the differential emotions theory backs up the study on how we can differentiate emotions. This theory basically states that there are ten emotional states that coincide with a unique feeling, expression, neural activity, and purpose or motivation. This fits in with motivation because these ten specific emotions send signals to the body that biologically are programmed to respond in a certain way depending on the emotion. Chapter 12 also talks about the structure and the muscles of the face. Each expression has a specific facial shape that humans have learned since childhood to read. Each facial expression is universal but the use of each one will differ with each culture.