The face of fear

Since I stopped running from panic and began studying it instead, I've become fascinated by fear -- why humans and other animals evolved to experience fear the ways we do, and what fear looks like through the lens of the patient, psychiatrist, neurologist, psychologist, biologist, ethicist, artist, politician, theologian, athlete, marketing executive, lawyer, police officer, and so on.

Which led me to this, a look at why fearful facial expressions are common among all humans. From the article:

The evolutionary mystery of why our faces contort when we are scared has been solved by a team of Canadian neuroscientists.

When our facial expression shifts to one of eye-bulging, nostril-flaring fear, our ability to sense attackers or other imminent danger improves dramatically, researchers found.

The findings lend support to an idea first laid out by Charles Darwin in one of his less well-known tomes, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, published in 1872. Darwin noted that facial expressions of emotion were often remarkably similar across human cultures, and even the animal kingdom, implying they may have a common evolutionary benefit.

"Most people think expressions are social signals, that they are intended to communicate what someone's feeling. We're saying they probably evolved as a sensory function first, even if they do help convey our feelings to others," said Adam Anderson, a cognitive neuroscientist who led the study at the University of Toronto.

Writing in the journal Nature Neuroscience, Anderson and his colleague Joshua Susskind reveal how the classic expression of fear increases our range of vision, speeds up eye movement and improves air flow through the nose. All of these reactions boost our ability to see or smell threats and prepare ourselves for the "fight or flight" response, where we either battle it out with our attacker or take to our heels.

Note: I borrowed the image introducing this post from this artist's blog. She does cool stuff; check it out.