Pain and Disgust: The Facial Signaling of Two Aversive Bodily Experiences
Pain and Disgust: The Facial Signaling of Two Aversive Bodily Experiences
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DOI：
10.1371/journal.pone.0083277
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发表时间：
2013-12-09
期刊：
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Lautenbacher, Stefan
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Kunz, Miriam;Peter, Jessica;Lautenbacher, Stefan
痛苦和厌恶的体验有许多相似之处，因为两者都是由身体威胁引起的厌恶体验，并导致防御反应。本研究的目的是调查是否面部表情是不同的，足以编码的具体质量的痛苦和厌恶，或者他们是否只是编码类似的负面效价和唤醒水平的两种状态。在60名参与者中，分别由热刺激和图片引起疼痛和厌恶。面部反应（面部动作编码系统）以及主观反应进行了评估。我们的主要发现是，几乎相同的单一面部动作引起的痛苦和厌恶的经验。然而，这些单一的面部动作表现出不同的强度，并根据疼痛或厌恶的经验不同的组合。疼痛主要是由眼睛周围肌肉的收缩（本身或与眉毛收缩相结合）编码的;厌恶主要伴随着眉毛的收缩，与疼痛相反，上唇的抬起以及上唇抬起和眉毛收缩的组合。我们的数据清楚地表明，面部表情似乎是截然不同的，不仅可以编码与这两种身体厌恶体验（即疼痛和厌恶）相关的一般效价和唤醒，而且还可以编码对身体的威胁的具体来源。这意味着观察者对这两种状态的差异解码是可能的，而无需额外的言语或上下文信息，这对于临床实践来说是特别感兴趣的，因为提高观察者对这些不同差异的认识可以帮助改善对不能提供疼痛自我报告的患者的疼痛的检测（例如，痴呆症患者）。
The experience of pain and disgust share many similarities, given that both are aversive experiences resulting from bodily threat and leading to defensive reactions. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether facial expressions are distinct enough to encode the specific quality of pain and disgust or whether they just encode the similar negative valence and arousal level of both states. In sixty participants pain and disgust were induced by heat stimuli and pictures, respectively. Facial responses (Facial Action Coding System) as well as subjective responses were assessed. Our main findings were that nearly the same single facial actions were elicited during pain and disgust experiences. However, these single facial actions were displayed with different strength and were differently combined depending on whether pain or disgust was experienced. Whereas pain was mostly encoded by contraction of the muscles surrounding the eyes (by itself or in combination with contraction of the eyebrows); disgust was mainly accompanied by contraction of the eyebrows and-in contrast to pain-by raising of the upper lip as well as the combination of upper lip raise and eyebrow contraction. Our data clearly suggests that facial expressions seem to be distinct enough to encode not only the general valence and arousal associated with these two bodily aversive experiences, namely pain and disgust, but also the specific origin of the threat to the body. This implies that the differential decoding of these two states by an observer is possible without additional verbal or contextual information, which is of special interest for clinical practice, given that raising awareness in observers about these distinct differences could help to improve the detection of pain in patients who are not able to provide a self-report of pain (e.g., patients with dementia).