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Facial expressions alter sensory perception
This week–
YOU wrinkle your nose and squint if you see a dead rat in the road, but you open your eyes and mouth wide if you see a live one in your bedroom. Why is that? Facial expressions are usually thought of as simple tools of communication, but in his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals Charles Darwin proposed that they may prepare us to react to situations when he noticed that some expressions seemed to be used across cultures and even species. Now Joshua Susskind and his colleagues at the University of Toronto, Canada, have put that idea to the test. Susskind’s team wondered whether the characteristic expressions of fear – eyes wide open, eyebrows raised and mouth agape – might improve
JOSHUA SUSSKIND AND ADAM ANDERSON/ACL/UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
Look scared, and you’ll see danger more clearly how sensory information is acquired and so increase alertness. Conversely disgust – with the face all scrunched up – might blunt the senses, shielding us from unpleasant sights and smells. The researchers asked subjects to complete various tests while holding a fearful, disgusted or neutral expression. In one they had to identify when a spot entered their field of view. In another they were required to shift their focus as quickly as possible between two targets on a computer screen. How much air the volunteers breathed in while expressing fear and disgust was also measured. In each case the wide-eyed Home Alone face let significantly more of the world in. Subjects with wide-open eyes detected
–Just tweaking sensory awareness–
INSIGHT
AFTER $10 billion spent, countless papers and a large helping of controversy, are we any closer to knowing whether Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert offers a secure resting place for America’s nuclear legacy? For two senior geologists, the debate is over and it’s time to forge ahead. Last week, Isaac Winograd and Eugene Roseboom, who did pioneering studies of nuclear storage in the 1980s, argued that the project should proceed, albeit cautiously, with a pilot facility followed by staged expansion over several decades (Science, vol 320, p 1426). They are not the first to suggest this – a National Academy of Sciences study urged a similar approach five years ago – but are they right? Congress selected Yucca Mountain as a
16 | NewScientist | 21 June 2008
PETER ESSECK/AURORA/GETTY
Getting down and dirty over Nevada nuclear dump
proposed underground repository in 1987 because of its arid and remote location, mostly within a nuclear test site. Less than 20 centimetres of rain falls each year, so the water table lies 300 metres below where the repository would be built, safely beyond any risk of contamination. Some have argued that the water table may
peripheral objects more quickly and performed side-to-side eye movements faster. They also took in more air with each breath without exerting any extra effort (Nature Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1038/nn.2138). An MRI scan showed the nasal cavity was enlarged while subjects held this expression, which the team suggest could be linked with a greater ability to absorb odours. “These changes are consistent with the idea that fear, for example, is a posture towards
vigilance, and disgust a posture towards sensory rejection,” says Susskind. His team is already at work on experiments to explore to what extent the brain can use this extra information to enhance performance. “What was nice was the number of different ways they got at this question,” says Elizabeth Phelps at New York University. “They were very creative.” She thinks the work could open up a whole new way of thinking about facial expressions. Alison Motluk ●
No one can prove Yucca Mountain will be completely safe, but is it safe enough?
the waste can be secured for several hundred thousand years. For all Yucca Mountain’s faults, Winograd, Roseboom and many other geologists consider it a lesser evil than the surface storage sites now being used, which are vulnerable to accidents or sabotage. Some 60,000 tonnes of highlevel waste are spread among 72 reactor sites, many near cities, and all next to a river, lake or ocean. They may get their wish, as the Department of Energy this month asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a licence to build the repository. The NRC is examining the 8600-page application to decide whether it is complete enough to warrant full three-year scrutiny. Meanwhile, anti-nuclear activists and opponents of Yucca are ready for a long scrap. Many of them have clout: one US senator from Nevada, Harry Reid, holds the powerful post of Senate majority leader. The scientific debate may have run its course, but the political fight is only just getting started. Jeff Hecht ●
sometimes rise, but Winograd says that theory “has been put to rest”. Doubts over the region’s stability are tougher to refute. The crust in southern Nevada is being pulled apart, creating faults that could one day allow magma to seep into the repository. Yucca Mountain itself is made of rock only 10 million years old, and some studies say a volcanic structure 15 kilometres away formed only 78,000 years ago. More eruptions – not to mention earthquakes – are possible, but nobody knows when or where they might occur and there is disagreement over the risk. Winograd and Roseboom complain that policy-makers seek a level of certainty they simply cannot provide. “From a geological point of view, there are no sure bets,” says Brian Evans of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who supports the idea of a test facility. Yet four years ago, a US appeals court ruled that construction cannot go ahead unless
www.newscientist.com
YOU wrinkle your nose and squint if you see a dead rat in the road, but you open your eyes and mouth wide if you see a live one in your bedroom. Why is that? Facial expressions are usually thought of as simple tools of communication, but in his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals Charles Darwin proposed that they may prepare us to react to situations when he noticed that some expressions seemed to be used across cultures and even species. Now Joshua Susskind and his colleagues at the University of Toronto, Canada, have put that idea to the test. Susskind’s team wondered whether the characteristic expressions of fear – eyes wide open, eyebrows raised and mouth agape – might improve
JOSHUA SUSSKIND AND ADAM ANDERSON/ACL/UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
Look scared, and you’ll see danger more clearly how sensory information is acquired and so increase alertness. Conversely disgust – with the face all scrunched up – might blunt the senses, shielding us from unpleasant sights and smells. The researchers asked subjects to complete various tests while holding a fearful, disgusted or neutral expression. In one they had to identify when a spot entered their field of view. In another they were required to shift their focus as quickly as possible between two targets on a computer screen. How much air the volunteers breathed in while expressing fear and disgust was also measured. In each case the wide-eyed Home Alone face let significantly more of the world in. Subjects with wide-open eyes detected
–Just tweaking sensory awareness–
INSIGHT
AFTER $10 billion spent, countless papers and a large helping of controversy, are we any closer to knowing whether Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert offers a secure resting place for America’s nuclear legacy? For two senior geologists, the debate is over and it’s time to forge ahead. Last week, Isaac Winograd and Eugene Roseboom, who did pioneering studies of nuclear storage in the 1980s, argued that the project should proceed, albeit cautiously, with a pilot facility followed by staged expansion over several decades (Science, vol 320, p 1426). They are not the first to suggest this – a National Academy of Sciences study urged a similar approach five years ago – but are they right? Congress selected Yucca Mountain as a
16 | NewScientist | 21 June 2008
PETER ESSECK/AURORA/GETTY
Getting down and dirty over Nevada nuclear dump
proposed underground repository in 1987 because of its arid and remote location, mostly within a nuclear test site. Less than 20 centimetres of rain falls each year, so the water table lies 300 metres below where the repository would be built, safely beyond any risk of contamination. Some have argued that the water table may
peripheral objects more quickly and performed side-to-side eye movements faster. They also took in more air with each breath without exerting any extra effort (Nature Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1038/nn.2138). An MRI scan showed the nasal cavity was enlarged while subjects held this expression, which the team suggest could be linked with a greater ability to absorb odours. “These changes are consistent with the idea that fear, for example, is a posture towards
vigilance, and disgust a posture towards sensory rejection,” says Susskind. His team is already at work on experiments to explore to what extent the brain can use this extra information to enhance performance. “What was nice was the number of different ways they got at this question,” says Elizabeth Phelps at New York University. “They were very creative.” She thinks the work could open up a whole new way of thinking about facial expressions. Alison Motluk ●
No one can prove Yucca Mountain will be completely safe, but is it safe enough?
the waste can be secured for several hundred thousand years. For all Yucca Mountain’s faults, Winograd, Roseboom and many other geologists consider it a lesser evil than the surface storage sites now being used, which are vulnerable to accidents or sabotage. Some 60,000 tonnes of highlevel waste are spread among 72 reactor sites, many near cities, and all next to a river, lake or ocean. They may get their wish, as the Department of Energy this month asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a licence to build the repository. The NRC is examining the 8600-page application to decide whether it is complete enough to warrant full three-year scrutiny. Meanwhile, anti-nuclear activists and opponents of Yucca are ready for a long scrap. Many of them have clout: one US senator from Nevada, Harry Reid, holds the powerful post of Senate majority leader. The scientific debate may have run its course, but the political fight is only just getting started. Jeff Hecht ●
sometimes rise, but Winograd says that theory “has been put to rest”. Doubts over the region’s stability are tougher to refute. The crust in southern Nevada is being pulled apart, creating faults that could one day allow magma to seep into the repository. Yucca Mountain itself is made of rock only 10 million years old, and some studies say a volcanic structure 15 kilometres away formed only 78,000 years ago. More eruptions – not to mention earthquakes – are possible, but nobody knows when or where they might occur and there is disagreement over the risk. Winograd and Roseboom complain that policy-makers seek a level of certainty they simply cannot provide. “From a geological point of view, there are no sure bets,” says Brian Evans of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who supports the idea of a test facility. Yet four years ago, a US appeals court ruled that construction cannot go ahead unless
www.newscientist.com