Facial mimicry interference reduces working memory accuracy for facial emotion expressions Show others and affiliations
2024 (English) In: PLOS ONE, E-ISSN 1932-6203, Vol. 19, no 6, article id e0306113Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Facial mimicry, the tendency to imitate facial expressions of other individuals, has been shown to play a critical role in the processing of emotion expressions. At the same time, there is evidence suggesting that its role might change when the cognitive demands of the situation increase. In such situations, understanding another person is dependent on working memory. However, whether facial mimicry influences working memory representations for facial emotion expressions is not fully understood. In the present study, we experimentally interfered with facial mimicry by using established behavioral procedures, and investigated how this interference influenced working memory recall for facial emotion expressions. Healthy, young adults (N = 36) performed an emotion expression n-back paradigm with two levels of working memory load, low (1-back) and high (2-back), and three levels of mimicry interference: high, low, and no interference. Results showed that, after controlling for block order and individual differences in the perceived valence and arousal of the stimuli, the high level of mimicry interference impaired accuracy when working memory load was low (1-back) but, unexpectedly, not when load was high (2-back). Working memory load had a detrimental effect on performance in all three mimicry conditions. We conclude that facial mimicry might support working memory for emotion expressions when task load is low, but that the supporting effect possibly is reduced when the task becomes more cognitively challenging.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE , 2024. Vol. 19, no 6, article id e0306113
National Category
Psychology
Identifiers URN: urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-205667 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0306113 ISI: 001259158900059 PubMedID: 38924006 OAI: oai:DiVA.org:liu-205667 DiVA, id: diva2:1879586
Funder Swedish Research Council, 349-2007-8654 Forte, Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare, 2012-1693
Note Funding Agencies|Swedish Research Council [349-2007-8654]; FORTE [2012-1693]
2024-06-282024-06-282025-04-09