Phenomenon of face expression in psychology

The article presents an analytical review of the socio-psychological and clinical research of the facial expression of emotions. The focus of the analysis is mimicry of a person as a psycho-physiological apparatus of a feedback mechanism in the structure of the basal emotions. The generalization of theoretical interpretations of emotions as functional systems is carried out. It is shown that mimicry is mainly considered as a communicative message. The results of Russian and foreign authors' researches of expressive manifestations of emotions with the help of myographic measurements are discussed in the article. The discrepancy of mimic schemes of basal emotions are revealed in the investigations based on descriptive and instrumental approaches. In particular, it is shown that in descriptive models mimic schemes are observed on the data of expert estimations while in instrumental ones it is done on the data of myographic rates. One and the same basic emotion obtains different variations of mimic expression. It is the second reason of discrepancy. This is because of the socio-psychological aspect of the conscious support of affect as well as a cultural factor which determines the tradition of emotion expression. Furthermore, expert estimations of descriptive models are based on artificial representations of emotions. The communicative side of emotion expression is studied in descriptive models of mimic schemes. The actual feedback mechanism is investigated in instrumental models. The scientific studies of mimic expressions in the sphere of clinical research are analyzed. Specifically, particular patterns of facial expression manifestations in experiments on emotional response and definitions of emotions in psycho-organic patients sampling are determined on the example of works of Russian scientists. Methodological grounds of the phenomenon of mimicry are suggested: the feedback in the psychological structure of emotion is presented by a set of states encoded in mimic patterns, their actualization simultaneously carries out the function of probabilistic forecasting, creates conditions for mental stability support in response to changing conditions. The presented research arises the problem of mimic patterns distortion which is investigated when solving the question of emotion blockage. The investigation of the facial expression phenomenon proposes an available approach for psycho-emotional blocks detection and for systematic organization of emotions in general. The feedback in the psychological structure of emotion is presented by a set of states encoded in mimic patterns, their actualization simultaneously carries out the function of probabilistic forecasting, takes part in communicative function performing and creates conditions for mental stability support in response to changing conditions.

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