GAZE AND FACIAL EXPRESSIONS WHEN TALKING ABOUT EMOTIONAL EPISODES

Abstract

This study investigated whether an emotional valence conveyed by verbal content would influence the production of facial displays. Undergraduate students were asked to describe three kinds of intense emotional episodes (involving joy, anger, or sadness) to an experimenter (listener). Their facial displays were simultaneously videotaped via a prompter. The results revealed that overall, speakers maintained positive facial displays as they talked, regardless of the type of emotional episodes. While they described a positive emotional episode (i.e., joy), their verbal protocols were likely to co-occur with a gaze directed at the listener and a positive facial expression. In contrast, while they described a negative emotional episodes (i.e., anger or sadness), their verbal protocols were less clearly associated with gaze and facial expression. These findings implicate that during social interactions, gaze and facial expression reflect both the emotional valence of a verbal message and the attitudes toward a listener.