What the Mirror Showed

Reviews the book, What the Face Reveals: Basic and Applied Studies of Spontaneous Expression Using the Facial Action Coding System (2nd ed.) by Paul Ekman and Erika L. Rosenberg (Eds.) (see record 2005-07386-000). The reviewer starts his review by giving backround information on the main topic of the book, prosopagnosia or face blindness. The study of prosopagnosia, thought to be due to damage or a disorder of the fusiform gyrus in the temporal lobe (very recent research seems to support a genetic aspect as well), has been important to the development of theories of face perception. This second edition contains six new contributions (6 chapters in the 28-chapter total) to the literature based on facial measurement and is organized in two parts. The first part is titled Basic Research Into Emotion, and the second is called Applied Research. In Part 1, three of the chapters address the issues involved in individual differences in the magnitude of facial responses. Two further chapters in Part 1 address the question of whether there is a strong relation between the emotion shown on the face and how that emotion is subjectively reported as experienced. In Part 2--Applied Research Issues--six of the eight chapters deal with studying emotional expressions in psychopathology, in particular depression and/or schizophrenia. Prosopagnosia and its related disorders have provided a measurement window into how the advantage of face sight, not blindness, affects our social relations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)