Frowning Makes it Seem
Harder
Honors Thesis
Katie Michel
Under the direction of
Craig Smith & Leslie Kirby
April, 2007
The Hypothesis
• Brow-furrowing will increase
the perception that the task at
hand is more difficult than it
really is.
Why is this an interesting
hypothesis?
• Working from appraisal theory,
the hypothesis integrates 2
lines of research
• The componential structure of
facial expression
• The facial feedback hypothesis
Appraisal Theory
• Evaluative process
• These evaluations, or
appraisals, initiate and organize
the other components of an
emotional response
The Componential
Structure of facial
expression
• Not monolithic, unanalyzable
entities
• Organized around the appraisals
producing the emotions
• Some facial components
directly reflect appraisal
information
Ekman’s famous faces
Facial Feedback
Hypothesis
• Physiological response creates the
emotional elicitation
• FFH presents a challenge to
appraisal theory
• But, if facial actions can be shown
to prime their associated appraisals,
then this priming provides evidence
that facial actions might produce
their emotional effects through
cognitive activity (i.e. appraisals)
Significance of my
experiment
• Link between the eyebrow
frown and the perception of
goal obstacles.
• Working in the opposite
direction -- will manipulating the
facial expression prime the
relevant appraisal?
Benefits
• Provide convergent validation of
the demonstrated links between
brow activity and appraisal of
goal obstacles.
• Help reconcile FFH with
Appraisal Theory
Predictions
• Brow activity will prime/activate
relevant concepts:
• Unpleasantness and perceived
obstacles
• Effort
Stroop
• Meaning of word vs. color of word
• When the meaning of the word is
especially attention grabbing, it
makes responding to the color more
difficult, which produces a
measurable delay
• Therefore, it predicts slower
responses to words whose meanings
have been primed
Reaction Time (milliseconds)
Pilot Study
540
520
500
480
Control
Frown
460
440
420
400
Unpleasant
Obstacle
Effort
Word Category
Arousal
Neutral
Pilot Limitations
• small n, potential alternative
explanation - the golf tees were
painful
• Address these issues, run a larger
sample
Methods: How to test this
hypothesis
• We needed a control
• We needed to find a non-painful
and non-reactive way to
manipulate facial muscle
activity
• We needed a sensitive measure
of concept activation
Task Posing
• Control
• Relaxed face, completely neutral to any
stimuli.
• Mouth
• Lips curled upwards towards the nose
• Brow
• Furrowed together (“Like you are trying
to touch a dot in between your eyebrows
and top of your nose”)
Modified Stroop
• List of 110 words, 20 high
obstacle, 20 high effort, 20 low
effort/obstacle, 20 pleasant, 20
unpleasant, 10 practice
• Assuming our hypothesis is
true, subjects should respond
slower to high obstacle words
and unpleasant words, if
concept is primed.
Methods, cont.’d
• 19 participants – 12 female, 7 male
• Dropped data of one male participant,
due to 56.333% error rate = 18 total
analyzed
•
•
•
•
Conditions were randomized
IV– facial manipulations
DV – reaction time
EMG physio was used as a
manipulation check
Task Word List
• Unpleasant words:
• Agony, bomb, brutal, harm
• Pleasant words:
• Amazing, beauty, beloved,
charmed
• High Obstacle:
• Setback, prohibition, barricade,
impediment
Task Word List, cont’d.
• High effort words:
• Drill, energy, exertion, haul
• Neutral words:
• Aluminum, apparent, briefly,
cabinet
Procedure
•
•
•
•
Consent
Electrodes
5 minute baseline, Sudoku
Practice, then 3 conditions with
5-min. baseline in between
• Debrief
Results
• Controlling for order as a covariate
did not substantially affect the
results.
• Marginally reliable effect of pose
Multivariate F (10, 56) = 1.92,
p = .06
• Planned comparison - there is a
significant difference for
unpleasantness related to the brow
furrow!
Results Graph
500
490
480
Control
Brow
470
Mouth
460
450
Obstacle
Effort
Neutral
Pleasant
Unpleasant
Limitations
• Unpleasantness, High Obstacle,
and High Effort words
• We did see statistically
significant results for the
unpleasant words, but only
nonsignificant trends for high
obstacle and high effort words
Plans for Future
Research
• Refine word lists
• Refine control task
• Use a bigger sample
Questions?
Thank you!
Craig Smith
Leslie Kirby
Smith/Kirby lab group