hae be we wa bee ee ee oe ie Asymmetry in Facial Expression ‘The conclusion of Sackeim et al. (!) thai there is “greater ighthemispherie involvement in the production of emo- tional expression" is unwarranted. They found that observers judge doubledeft ‘composite faces as showing more intense femotion than double-right composite faces, However. they failed to consider the possibilty that peripheral neural and anatomical diferences rather than dif ferences in the activity of the right and lett cerebral hemispheres could explain such results. Facial surgeons note @) thatthe wo sides ofthe face difer inthe size of the muscles. in fatty deposits @), and inthe neural supply from the facial nerve nucleus to the facial. muscles Without controls for such diferences, the findings of Sackeim eal. cannot be interpreted as being due solely to dit- ferences in the impulses sent from the two cerebral hemispheres to the facial nucle ‘There is also reason to question whether Sackeim e al. were justified in talking about lateralization in emotional expressions, since they studied a dif. ferent type of facial movement. Neurolo- sists distinguish between voluntary fa ial movements (by which they usually mean the ability to perform requested ac tions} and spontaneous emotional ex- pressions. The evidence is clear that these two types of facial activity depend upon different neural pathways (4). The potential independence of these. two types of facial actions is dramatically shown in clinical eases in which lesions in the pyramidal system (for example the precentral gyrus) impair requested facial movements but leave emotional f- cial movements intact, whereas lesions in nonpyramidal systems produce the re- verse patter. This evidence emphasizes the need for caution in generalizing from studies of requested facial movements © emotional expression and vice versa, ‘Thus, itis crucial to know whether the facial movements studied by. Sackeim etal. were requested or more spontane: ‘ous emotional expressions ‘Sackeim etal. did not accurately de- serbe the photographs they used, which W. V. Friesen and I supplied to them, They wrote that the pictures showed ‘posed”” emotions, oF subjects delbe ately attempting to convey particular emotions.” Posing may involve either deliberate performance or some attempt to reexperience an emotion 10 produce the expression. If our photographs had been posed it would be unclear which kind of facial movements Sackeim eal had studied, With few exceptions, how fever, the photogruphs they used were fot even pines, But the most deliberate performance of requested facial move- ments. In describing. how the photo: {raphs were taken, Friesen and I wrote that the photographic models “were not told to feel an emotion, but rather given instructions such as lower your Brow 80 that it looks lke Uns. oF tighten your lower eyelid" &, p. 170). Because our photographs were of requested facial movements, rot of emotional poses there must be even more caution in gen crazing to spontaneous facial expres: sion of emotion. “The fact that they found no left-right differences in judgments of the happy Photographs is important. since, un- Known to Sackeim ea, these were the conly photographs of spontaneous emo- tional expression rather than deliberately performed facial actions. In making the happy photographs, we caught the mod- cls off puard during a spontaneously oe uring happy moment in the photo- fraphie session, Tt might be argued that the reason no leftsight diferences were found in these happy pictures was not because they showed spontaneous rather than requested actions, but because pos itive emotions alone are not asymmetri- cal in appearance (). However, Ekman, Hager, and Friesen (7) found that asym- ‘metrical deliberate smiles are usually ‘more intense onthe left than on the right side, and they replicated findings by Lynn and Lyan @) that asymmetrical spontaneous smiles are relatively infe= ‘quent and are not usually more intense fon a particular side of the face. These findings suggest that facial asymmetry (orth let stronger than right) is apparent only with deliberate and not spontaneous expressions, but studying musele move iments involved in the negative emotions fs necessary to generalize beyond the smile “The isve of left-right ditferences is not resolved for either emotional expression fof requested facial movements. Both types of action need to be studied, ideal> |y in the same subjects and jn situations ‘that clearly diferentiate the typeof facial movement elicited. The methods must control oF bypass the ype of peripheral differences in facial anatomy that cloud results based solely on observers’ jude ‘ments of emotion, For now, more cau- tion is needed in interpreting the findings from studies based on observers’ jude iments of emotion to either requested fa cial movement oF emotional expression, land in generalizing from studies of the former tothe latter. Pau Exwan Department of Pavelianrs. University of California, Sun Francs 82143 maaan ae cs 1 fils Semen ie rt oe ee See Ger ae Sie rr ae, rat Tos, Risk iaacnte : Jaige compl (Cor id LT EasE aponed fall pote hae he Mahe poe ce Panes 853-854