Identifying meaningful facial configurations during iterative prisoner’s dilemma games

Internet publication

The contraction and relaxation of facial muscles in humans is widely assumed to fulfil communicative and adaptive functions. However, to date most work has focussed either on individual muscle movements (action units) in isolation or on a small set of configurations commonly assumed to express “basic emotions”. As such, it is as yet unclear what information is communicated between individuals during naturalistic social interactions and how contextual cues influence facial activity occurring in these exchanges. The present study investigated whether consistent patterns of facial action units occur during dyadic iterative prisoners’ dilemma games, and what these patterns of facial activity might mean. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, we identified three distinct and consistent configurations of facial musculature change across three different datasets. These configurations were associated with specific gameplay outcomes, suggesting that they perform psychologically meaningful context-related functions. The first configuration communicated enjoyment and the second communicated affiliation and appeasement, both indicating cooperative intentions after cooperation or defection respectively. The third configuration communicated disapproval and encouraged social partners not to defect again. Future work should validate the occurrence and functionality of these facial configurations across other kinds of social interaction.

Authors: Robertson, OM; Parkinson, B; Shore, DM

• Publication status: Published
• Publisher: PsyArXiv
• Host title: PsyArXiv
• Publication date: 2023-07-14
• DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/fgk64
• Language: English
• Keywords: facial expression; FACS; trust; cooperation; emotion; FFR; communication
• Subjects: Emotion; Social and behavioral sciences