Ekman, CT & Emotions

I'd like to begin first with the signal of the expression of Disgust.








The expression of disgust is essentially the same as the expression of an Fi snarl. And in a resting state (as seen in the girl) it looks like Fi tension. (But this is CT language. Lets look at it from Ekman's perspective and try to work backward toward CT.)

We might say that observation holds steadfast that there are certain people who regularly exhibit signals of disgust on their face. This would suggest that the person is continually experiencing disgust, which is a feeling of moral or aesthetic repulsion to certain events (perceived or imagined), and/or sensations felt.

Then we might ask, why? Such a person might have a rather high standard of morality or high aesthetic selectivity to be continually emitting these emotional expressions.

Another clue we have is the fact that certain of these people will display the emotional of disgust at micro-intervals on their face when talking about a lot of things and not just things obviously/directly related to repulsion. This could mean their psyche operates by default with a constant predisposition to judge morally with a type of aesthetic.

Perception & Judgment

I've been investigating Ekman as of late from an intuitive angle, looking for bridges and ways to synthesize. I'd like to share a passive observation with you guys, for what it's worth.



^ This diagram shows two rows.

The top row shows the 6 universal emotions as they appear photographically.
The bottom row shows the same face with the neutral face subtracted from the image; revealing areas of highest contrast in white or black tone.

Source: www.researchgate.net/figure/2952396_fig6_Figure-6-Network-representation-of-each-facial-expression-Top-row-Approximation-of

Highest displacement of ocular data appears in Fear and Surprise, suggesting these two are associated to perception. Anger and Disgust seem to have little ocular displacement and instead are strongly concentrated around the mouth area. Sadness affects everything the least but about equally, and happiness is also in the mouth.

---

This finding fits very well with (and translates over to) a key principle of cognitive type;

• Quality of eye area indicates the quality of perceptual information
• Quality of mouth area indicates the quality of judgment
  

Is it reasonable to suggest that Fear and Surprise are more closely tied to perceptual information? After all, Fear is when something happens unexpectedly to you but of an unpleasant nature. Surprise is when some information arises in the moment, but probably benign or even amusing/fun.

Inversely, Anger and Disgust appear to be linked to the mouth (i.e. we already know of disgust's connection to judgmentality, contempt and Fi). This suggest Anger is also connected to Judgment in the same way as disgust. Both are moralistic in their nature. However anger appears to have a forward/aggressive vector to it, while disgust appears to want to keep a distance from things.

• Disgust: I judge [this] as reprehensible, and will keep my distance from it.
• Anger: I judge [this] as reprehensible, and will attack it to remove it as a threat.
• Fear: I perceive [this] situation as unexpected* and threatening.
• Surprise: I perceive [this] situation as unexpected and novel/inviting.
  

~~

I think happiness and sadness deserve their own category, as they seem iconic universal states; roughly denoting healthy psychology vs unhealthy psychology when the expression persists on the face. As noted in this study, schizophrenic patients and depressed patients experienced and displayed a persistent expression of Sorrow (by Ekman's definition) and an inability to fully display joy.

Depression and the "flat affect" are essentially identical to the expression of sadness. And the expression of happiness seems to be the natural inverse, with eyes free and animated, and the mouth released from downward restraints.

• Sorrow: I experience [this situation] with lack of overall life.
  
• Happiness: I experience [this situation] with an abundance of life.
  

---

* - Alerith pointed out to me that Fear can exist toward something even if it's not unexpected. For example a child who knows his father will beat him every day after work, will be afraid even if it's expected.

I would suggest that in this context there is fear in the anticipation/potentiality of pain? And so fear is connected to anxiety, which is the suspicion that things will happen wrongly. I would still lump this into the perceptual category, as a type of suspense toward the (yet) unrealized/unseen. The projection of (negative) perception into the future.

Can paranoia bee seen as a form of neurotic Pi expectation? Whether it's Ni anticipation of the imminent negative, or Si fear of negative recurrence, it would appear there's some link there.

But these are all just brainstorms, and I don't mean to make any claim by them. Just thought experiments.

Ah, that's true. There's a scowl there.

Scowls are a type of rejection of incoming perceptual data, at least that's the theme I've seen common throughout all the various uses of scowls. Whether it's blocking out excessive sunlight, or reacting with confusion/disbelief at "bad news", or when Pi is trying to reject Pe's data to go inward; there's a closedness to the exterior stimuli.

It makes sense that we would see these two together.

* Upper Face: Scowl: state of perceptual rejection.
* Lower Face: Disgust/Anger: state of judgment/antagonism toward an outer object.

..though i do have to think about this a bit more.

For all the reasons Collo listed, as well as being lead by his eyes (P-lead) and all the signals for a beta, NiFe sounds right.