keep track.” They then went back and began monitoring their
bodies during particular facial movements. “Say you do A.U.
one, raising the inner eyebrows, and six, raising the cheeks, and
fifteen, the lowering of the corner of the lips,” Ekman said, and
then did all three. “What we discovered is that that expression
alone is sufficient to create marked changes in the autonomic
nervous system. When this first occurred, we were stunned. We
weren’t expecting this at all. And it happened to both of us. We
felt terrible. What we were generating were sadness, anguish.
And when I lower my brows, which is four, and raise the upper
eyelid, which is five, and narrow the eyelids, which is seven,
and press the lips together, which is twenty-four, I’m generating
anger. My heartbeat will go up ten to twelve beats. My hands
will get hot. As I do it, I can’t disconnect from the system. It’s
very unpleasant, very unpleasant.”
Ekman, Friesen, and another colleague, Robert Levenson
(who has also collaborated for years with John Gottman;
psychology is a small world) decided to try to document this
effect. They gathered a group of volunteers and hooked them
up to monitors measuring their heart rate and body temperature
— the physiological signals of such emotions as anger, sadness,
and fear. Half of the volunteers were told to try to remember