Is recognizing Facial Expressions innate or learned?

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Suppose a child was raised by a parent who has been disfigured. When this parent is happy and attempts to 'smile' the corners of the mouth turn downwards in a stereotypical sad face. Alternatively when this parent is sad they smile. Would the child learn to associate smiling with sadness and a down turned mouth with happiness?

Most aspects of social interaction are leaned - morality, culture, religion, language etc. No one is born knowing what behavior is acceptable/unacceptable in the society they live in.

I honestly have no idea.

Interesting question.

There was an article in the nineties about a blind man who had his sight restored by surgery in adulthood.

I stumbled upon a made-for-TV movie on cable starring Robin Williams as the guy's shrink - in what seemed to be the same true story dramatized.

The guy needed years of guidance from the Robin Williams character to learn to function as a sighted person even after his eyes were restored to working condintion.

The upshot of both the article and movie was that a surprising large part of "seeing' (that we sighted people take for granted) is actually learned, and not innate. The guy had to learn that when a car started out small and got progressively bigger - that meant it was - COMING RIGHT AT YOU!! ! -you idiot- get outta the way!

In the TV drama he would also constantly ask his fiance "what does THAT facial expression [on her face] mean?"

So, along with much else, he had to learn what facial expressions meant.

Last edited by naturalplastic on 02 May 2013, 6:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yes and No. Some aspects of emotional recognition are learned and some are innate, even for autistics. Facial expression reading to a very large point is learned, at least in the general population. There are those that are born with an innate ability to read someone so well they can effectively interpret feelings and/or honesty with little to no facial or other nonverbal cues. Interestingly it seems to occur in much the same rates for both NT and AnT people. Emotion recognition comes from a variety of places. Facial expression is one and a lesser one at that. Most blind or deaf people can "feel" your mood and are most often correct in their judgments.

I would think that for most people it's innate as they just just seem to know them and pick up on them...but it's something that some people on the spectrum need to be taught directly.

That's an interesting question.

Does someone who has been blind from birth smile when they are happy and frown when something is bothering them? Do they have any facial expressions at all?

I think it's mostly innate.

Yes, I have problems with this but I have studied on my own to get better.

I think that reading facial expressions and knowing what they mean is learned.

It's partly innate, partly learnt. Researchers have found that very young infants can distinguish happy vs unhappy faces and can imitate facial expressions, but this ability gets refined with age.

I think recognizing facial expressions are innate and learned. A um... normal child would need to know how to associate certian expressions growing up, this would learn whats what innate, the difference from a child who cannot recognize things is that it can be learned, but it can't be innately recognized... I'm terrible at explaining things...

Its both.

When you are an infant, between the age of 1 and 3 your brain is wired to observe, imitate and associate facial expressions with emotions or concepts.

The ability to learn it is innate (read up on : Mirror Neurons) and the association made in that learning is..learned.

In your scenario said child would only associate things 'backwards' if the disfigured adult was the only adult the child saw.

That's interesting. I read a completely fictional story (Truesight) about a society of blind people (they thought they were more pure than seeing people). One boy starts seeing and at one point he describes seeing his fellow people at a gathering, seeming vulnerable as they all stand there, their emotions showing on their face, thinking no one saw them.
That didn't make sense to me. If you've never seen, I thought you wouldn't naturally make emotions show on your face, I assumed it'd make you show nothing, at least most of the time.

I know I have learned to read facial expressions to a certain extent. My family members are the easiest for me to "read" because I am around them all the time. It is especially easy for me to tell if my stepfather is uncomfortable because he makes a very distinct facial expression.

I would assume that you innately and unconsciously MAKE facial expressions. Grimmace in physical pain, and would to the same in emotional pain. But you may not be able to read the expressions when you see them in others - if you were a blind person who suddenly became sighted. But that assumption too-might just be an 'assumption" on my part.

Innate if you've got nothing wrong with your social instinct. If you do, you'll have to learn it (various degrees of success there).