The Human Face

Standing around enjoying yourself with friends

There is nothing quite like it

Catching up, joshing each other, having a laugh,

seeing them laugh, just enjoying their company face-to-face

Yet in today's world

all too often we cut ourselves off from other people

We forget the benefits of being with others

I'll be finding out why being face-to-face is so very important

and why making expressions connects us with other people

and how facial expressions can alter the way we feel

Our facial expressions promote facial expressions from other people

When I smile at you, almost immediately,

there is a smile comes back to me

We'll see how transforming your expressions can transform your marriage

and we'll explore the benefits of a good laugh

And now live from the heart of London's West End its

Secrets Of The Face

Good evening Tonight I shall be demonstrating

how to make and read facial expressions

with help from my assistant Janet

Hello. That's a smile

But first a question

Why is it that so few soap operas feature crocodiles?

Hello love

Hello dear

You look fed up

How can you tell? I was just guessing

The problem with crocodiles as dramatic actors

is that they only have one expression

and that's three less than Michael Palin

They are solitary creatures that

don't need to be able to communicate subtly with their fellow crocs

Most humans however are interested in slightly

more than just sex and violence

We like to communicate

In fact, we like it so much

we can create over 7000 different facial expressions

And Janet will now demonstrate a selection of them

Sadness

Contempt

Melancholic resignation with undertones of knowingfulness moderated

by envy and puzzlement mixed with guilty compassion plus a hint of irony

No, that's helpless astonishment

I told them to get Judi Dench

Never mind. Moving on

Now, the reason that the human face can produce so many expressions

is the way that it is constructed

The face consists of 44 muscles and two bones:

the skull and the jaw

But unlike any other part of the body these muscles are not attached to the bone

and so they are able to float freely

giving them the huge mobility that gives us facial expression

Now most of us can make expressions easily and effortlessly

Can I have my face back please?

Certainly

Give you the chance to practise with it

So, it comes as a shock to discover that

some people have great difficulty doing this

Lauren Deveney suffers from Mobius syndrome

The nerves that make her facial muscles move are paralysed

so she can't really make any expressions at all

We found out she had Mobius

about an hour and a half after she was born

There was apparently a very wonderful neonatologist

on the staff at that time

and she came and told us

and it all sounded horrid and awful and she wouldn't do this, she wouldn't do that

The way we explain it to people who just,

on the street or in the grocery store, or people who don't know about Lauren,

she was born with Mobius syndrome which gives her several characteristics:

she does have full facial paralysis,

her eyes do not move left to right,

she doesn't blink as often

and her eyes do not close all the way

It's hard to imagine not being able to move your face

I've tried to imagine it several hundreds of thousands of times and it's just,

nearly impossible to imagine how would your face feel if you couldn't move it

Lauren's parents are really worried about

how she is going to get on with other kids

I'm just afraid that, you know, she may get teased a lot and,

that whole social scene and friends and cliques and all that type of thing

I think that without facial expression they will perceive her

as being retarded, stupid, not paying attention, not interested

It's amazing that you don't realise how much your face does express your feelings

But Sharon and Dan have found a surgeon in Canada

who may be able to put a smile on Lauren's face

I would definitely like her to be able to smile the first day of school

It would be a lot less pressure on her

It would be a lot less pressure on everyone, basically

Lauren and her family

drive to Toronto for her operation

I hear there is an ice skating rink near our hotel

Do you think we should go ice skating before your surgery? Yeah

We'll have to go before your surgery

because you'll be in the hospital room afterwards

All right, round the corner there

So this is our room

You can open your eyes

Dr Ronald Zuker has helped pioneer

an operation that can give facial movement

to people like Lauren

Our facial expressions promote facial expressions from other people

So for example, when I smile at you,

almost immediately, there is a smile that comes back to me

and if you are unable to make a smile

then you are unable to have that interaction

And that interaction is crucial for the development of self-esteem

Now I want you to give me the biggest smile at you can

Big smile. Lots of teeth

Okay, now I want you to squint as hard as you can,

squint your eyes closed as hard as you can

I want you to turn around and face that monkey now

You see that monkey over there?

Now give me another big smile

Look at that monkey

I just want you to look at the monkey and give me a smile. Smile at the monkey

We take a segment of the muscle from the thigh

and we transplant it to the face, supporting the lower lip,

which improves drooling, supporting the corner of the mouth,

which also helps with oral competence,

and putting it into the corner of the mouth and upper lip so that

when it contracts it will lift up the lower lip and help with speech and,

perhaps most importantly,

it will lift up the corner of the mouth and upper lip and simulate a smile

Okay, here she comes. Sit still Here it is, you see, it is warm. Okay?

By the summer she'll have a full smile

and then for the first day of school, it would be September,

and that will be an amazing day, I think, for her to go to school

and have a smile to show how happy she is

Were going to take you in now, okay? Say bye to mummy

I love you. Good girl

Okay. Here we go

It will be six months before Sharon will find out

if Lauren's surgery will make her smile.

It's not going to be a natural smile

It's going to be black or white, you know,

she is either smiling or she has her porcelain face

But I think that even that, as small as it is,

is going to be a very great thing for her

Lauren's inability to make expressions means that

she's unable to send out signals

we'll use to communicate how we're feeling

Facial and body language say more about us the words ever do

but faces are also more ambiguous in a meaning

What is she thinking? Or him?

Now he certainly doesn't look very friendly

She's completely different, obviously thinking happy thoughts

What about this guy?

Look at the way he is doing his hair, he is clearly full of himself.

Oh no, he's a happy man about to make a success of his day

Happy! That man? Oh don't be so silly and pompous

You always make yourself sound so ridiculous

So, suspicion,

apprehension,

what?

Hurt resentment

Yes, very good

So this is our problem isn't it?

Our facial expressions are supposed to communicate our feelings

but communication only takes place if the other person reads our face correctly

And often human beings are not very good at that

That's an excuse, it doesn't matter, you said twice a year

That's what you told me But why would I worry about, I've told you

It's true It isn't.

It is It isn't

Well what is it then?

On the 29th of February she proposed to me

but I had a good idea she would

and I actually had a ring ready for her

and I accepted

We used to make each other laugh all the time

We were always having a laugh and a joke

Recently I haven't, I don't know, I've not been happy at all

And neither has he, eventually, come down to the fact that he wasn't either

And we are just getting nowhere at all

I think the business is a massive strain on us

Yeah, maybe

I try and make sure there's nobody there when he comes home from work

because I know he doesn't like people there

Now... But then if there is...

Now it's better But it wasn't like that before.

Yeah, but there wasn't for a while, and all of a sudden there was, a one-day,

and you flipped. It wasn't one-day, it was three days on the trot.

But that's because they were waiting for a lift home

You know, it is my house as well

You don't have complete control like you think you do

No, that's excuses It isn't

Dr John Gottman, a psychologist at the University of Seattle,

believes that when couples argue

it's not what they say

but what is shown on their faces that really matters

The way it works is almost unconscious,

I mean, a lot of times people don't really realise that,

you know, when they look at their partners brow,

you know, that they see distress their,

you know, and they don't register that's distress in a conscious way

they just realise that, you know,

they feel uncomfortable,

they'd like to leave, you know, or they feel fed up,

or they're tired of this response,