When mind and body align: examining the role of cross-modal congruency in conscious representations of happy facial expressions

ABSTRACT

This study explored how congruency between facial mimicry and observed expressions affects the stability of conscious facial expression representations. Focusing on the congruency effect between proprioceptive/sensorimotor signals and visual stimuli for happy expressions, participants underwent a binocular rivalry task displaying neutral and happy faces. Mimicry was either facilitated with a chopstick or left unrestricted. Key metrics included Initial Percept (bias indicator), Onset Resolution Time (time from onset to Initial Percept), and Cumulative Time (content stabilization measure). Results indicated that mimicry manipulation significantly impacted Cumulative Time for happy faces, highlighting the importance of congruent mimicry in stabilizing conscious awareness of facial expressions. This supports embodied cognition models, showing the integration of proprioceptive information significantly biases conscious visual perception of facial expressions.

KEYWORDS:

• Facial mimicry
• facial expressions
• sensorimotor simulation
• binocular rivalry
• visual awareness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authors’ note

The dataset and analyses reported in this manuscript are available at Open Science Framework repository: https://osf.io/xshpf/.

Author contributions

P.S. and T.Q. developed the study concept. All the authors contributed to the study design. T.Q. programmed the experiment and prepared the stimuli. T.Q. and E.M. gathered the data. T.Q. performed the data analysis, and P.S., T.Q., and N.T. interpreted the data. T.Q. and P.S. drafted the manuscript, and N.T. provided critical revision. All the authors approved the final version of the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo: [Grant Number Ricerca Scientifica d'Eccellenza, call 2021].