Efficient recognition of facial expressions does not require motor simulation

Abstract
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Abstract

What mechanisms underlie facial expression recognition? A popular hypothesis holds that efficient facial expression recognition cannot be achieved by visual analysis alone but additionally requires a mechanism of motor simulation — an unconscious, covert imitation of the observed facial postures and movements. Here, we first discuss why this hypothesis does not necessarily follow from extant empirical evidence. Next, we report experimental evidence against the central premise of this view: we demonstrate that individuals can achieve normotypical efficient facial expression recognition despite a congenital absence of relevant facial motor representations and, therefore, unaided by motor simulation. This underscores the need to reconsider the role of motor simulation in facial expression recognition.

Data availability

Data and stimulus materials are publicly available and can be accessed on the Open Science Framework platform (https://osf.io/8t4fv/?view_only=85c15cafe5d94bb6a5cff2f09a6ef56d)

The following data sets were generated

(2020) Data from: Efficient recognition of facial expressions does not require motor simulation
Open Science Framework, DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/8T4FV.

https://osf.io/8t4fv/?view_only=85c15cafe5d94bb6a5cff2f09a6ef56d

Article and author information

Author details

Gilles Vannuscorps

Psychological Sciences Research Institute, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

For correspondence
gilles.vannuscorps@uclouvain.be

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-5686-7349
Michael Andres

Psychological Sciences Research Institute, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Alfonso Caramazza

Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Funding

Harvard University's Mind, Brain and Behavior Interfaculty Initiative

Alfonso Caramazza

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Human subjects: The study was approved by the local Ethical committee at UCLouvain (Registration # B403201629166). Written informed consents were obtained from all participants prior to the study, and after the nature and possible consequences of the studies were explained.

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.