Looking Scared!
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Dr Joshua M Susskind and colleagues from the Department of Psychology, University of Toronto in Canada carried out this research, supported by a Canada Research Chairs program and a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council grant. It was published in the peer-reviewed science journal Nature Neuroscience.
"Fearful faces 'spot threats better'" is the headline on Channel 4 News. The Observer also reported on the same study at the weekend, claiming that a team of Canadian neuroscientists had solved the evolutionary mystery of why our faces contort in a certain way when we are scared.
The researchers found that when a group of students were told to make their eyes bulge or nostrils flare to mimic the facial expressions of fear, their ability to sense danger improved more than when they mimicked the face of disgust. This, the researchers say, supports Darwin's 1872 idea that facial expressions of emotion are often remarkably similar across human cultures, and even the animal kingdom, implying they may have a common evolutionary benefit. The researchers say that their experiment shows how a fearful expression is a protective one rather than a social one because it increases the range of vision, speeds up eye movement and improves airflow through the nose.
It is not clear how the facial expressions of fear or disgust might affect the selection processes that form the basis of evolutionary theory. However, the results of this testing demonstrate a plausible sequence of events for how selection might occur.
