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2 - To be seen or not to be seen: the presentation of facial information in everyday telecommunications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

By
José-Miguel Fernández-Dols  and
Pilar Carrera
Edited by
Arvid Kappas  and
Nicole C. Krämer
José-Miguel Fernández-Dols
Affiliation:
Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain
Pilar Carrera
Affiliation:
Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain
Arvid Kappas
Affiliation:
Jacobs University Bremen
Nicole C. Krämer
Affiliation:
Universität Duisburg–Essen
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Summary

Overview: Visual digital devices bring about new ways of managing one's facial expression that consist not of mere amplifications of face-to-face interaction, but rather of sophisticated constructions around different kinds of genre. In our view, these genres are articulated in terms of two main dimensions: the kind of representation of the world included in the message, and senders' social motives with respect to their audience. In terms of the first dimension, representation, we distinguish three levels of representation: visual icons of objects or events (we call this first level “copies”), conventional symbols of concepts (we call this second level “allegories and fictional stories”), and idiosyncratic elicitors of basic psychological processes (we call this third level “affect triggers”). In terms of the second dimension (senders' social motives), we take into account basic types of social interaction such as aggression, attraction, and helping behavior. The intersection of the two dimensions provides a list of genres in the telecommunication of facial information. We discuss these categories, provide some examples of their use, and make some speculations about their future.

A recognition revolution?

As one might hypothesize from intuition or experience, people derive pleasure from seeing a familiar face. Technology has now allowed us to document this effect; faces we recognize affect us differently from those we do not. Event-related potentials in the electroencephalogram are useful indexes of brain activity. Waves reproduce the synchronized excitation of cortical pyramidal neurons.

Type
Chapter
Information
Face-to-Face Communication over the Internet
Emotions in a Web of Culture, Language, and Technology
 , pp. 39 - 52
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

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