A new study has shown that facial mimicry reveals a lot about our personal preferences. An example of facial mimicry is smiling when you see other people smile or furrowing your brow when they look concerned.
It is an automatic mirroring of facial expressions. Facial mimicry is common in our daily lives, but it’s something we don’t really think about because it’s often a reflex.
But could it be more than just a reflexive motor response? That’s what researchers from Tel Aviv University set out to find. They investigated whether facial mimicry reveals what you like before you do.
First, they paired up dozens of participants and had one person from each pair describe two films in short summaries to the other.
The other person listened and watched the first person’s face closely. After hearing both stories, they decided which movie they wanted to watch more.
Then, they switched roles. For the second experiment, each pair listened to recordings of an actress who read similar summaries of films. This time, the participants did not have any visuals to refer to. Afterward, they chose which movie they preferred.
During the experiments, the researchers tracked the muscle movements in the faces of the listeners using sensors with special sensitivity.
Next, they analyzed how much each person’s face changed, how much they arched their eyebrows, and how much they mimicked the other person’s (the speaker’s) facial expression.
They discovered that people’s preferences aligned with the speaker’s facial expression more than their own. The listener’s own facial expression was not as reliable as predicting their preferences.
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“The study showed that we are not just listening to a story—we are actually being ‘swept’ toward the speaker,” said Liron Amihai, a co-author of the study.
“This mimicry often happens automatically, and it can predict which option we will prefer long before we think about it in words. Facial mimicry, therefore, is not merely a polite gesture, but also a part of the decision-making system.”
This outcome rang true for the second experiment as well, even when the listeners could not see the speakers’ faces. Overall, the researchers concluded that the human brain may take facial mimicry as a signal to influence your decisions before you even think about them.
However, the results of the study should be interpreted with caution due to some limitations. For instance, the participants of the study were all women. But if the results hold up, they could help us better understand human emotions and feelings.
“With the help of this technology and these findings, we may be able in the future to build systems that identify emotional preferences naturally—without asking a single question,” said Amihai.
“This is a meaningful step toward understanding how we choose, feel, and empathize with others, and it has many implications for the worlds of advertising, marketing, and decision-making process.”
The findings were published in Communications Psychology.
By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
