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Perceiving art is known to elicit motor cortex activation in an observer's brain. This motor activation has often been attributed to a covert approach response associated with the emotional valence of an art piece (emotional reaction hypothesis). However, recent accounts have proposed that aesthetic experiences could be grounded in the motor simulation of actions required to produce an art piece and of the sensorimotor states embedded in its subject (embodied aesthetic hypothesis). Here, we aimed to test these two hypotheses by assessing whether motor facilitation during artwork perception mirrors emotional or motor simulation processes. To this aim, we capitalized on single pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation revealing a two-stage motor coding of emotional body postures: an early, non-specific activation related to emotion processing and a later action-specific activation reflecting motor simulation. We asked art-naive individuals to rate how much they liked a series of pointillist and brushstroke canvases; photographs of artistic gardens served as control natural stimuli. After an early (150 ms) or a later (300 ms) post-stimulus delay, motor evoked potentials were recorded from wrist-extensor and finger muscles that were more involved in brushstroke- and pointillist-like painting, respectively. Results showed that observing the two canvas styles did not elicit differential motor activation in the early time window for either muscle, not supporting the emotional reaction hypothesis. However, in support of the embodied aesthetic hypothesis, we found in the later time window greater motor activation responses to brushstroke than pointillist canvases for the wrist-extensor, but not for the finger muscle. Furthermore, this muscle-selective facilitation was associated with lower liking ratings of brushstroke canvases and with greater empathy dispositions. These findings support the claim that simulation of the painter's movements is crucial for aesthetic experience, by documenting a link between motor simulation, dispositional empathy, and subjective appreciation in artwork perception.

The ability to recognize emotions undergoes major developmental changes from infancy to adolescence, peaking in early adulthood, and declining with aging. A life span approach to emotion recognition is lacking in the auditory domain, and it remains unclear how the speaker's and listener's ages interact in the context of decoding vocal emotions. Here, we examined age-related differences in vocal emotion recognition from childhood until older adulthood and tested for a potential own-age bias in performance. A total of 164 participants (36 children [7-11 years], 53 adolescents [12-17 years], 48 young adults [20-30 years], 27 older adults [58-82 years]) completed a forced-choice emotion categorization task with nonverbal vocalizations expressing pleasure, relief, achievement, happiness, sadness, disgust, anger, fear, surprise, and neutrality. These vocalizations were produced by 16 speakers, 4 from each age group (children [8-11 years], adolescents [14-16 years], young adults [19-23 years], older adults [60-75 years]). Accuracy in vocal emotion recognition improved from childhood to early adulthood and declined in older adults. Moreover, patterns of improvement and decline differed by emotion category: faster development for pleasure, relief, sadness, and surprise and delayed decline for fear and surprise. Vocal emotions produced by older adults were more difficult to recognize when compared to all other age groups. No evidence for an own-age bias was found, except in children. These findings support effects of both speaker and listener ages on how vocal emotions are decoded and inform current models of vocal emotion perception. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Dogs process faces and emotional expressions much like humans, but the time windows important for face processing in dogs are largely unknown. By combining our non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG) protocol on dogs with machine-learning algorithms, we show category-specific dog brain responses to pictures of human and dog facial expressions, objects, and phase-scrambled faces. We trained a support vector machine classifier with spatiotemporal EEG data to discriminate between responses to pairs of images. The classification accuracy was highest for humans or dogs vs. scrambled images, with most informative time intervals of 100–140 ms and 240–280 ms. We also detected a response sensitive to threatening dog faces at 30–40 ms; generally, responses differentiating emotional expressions were found at 130–170 ms, and differentiation of faces from objects occurred at 120–130 ms. The cortical sources underlying the highest-amplitude EEG signals were localized to the dog visual cortex.

Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms often experience social and emotional problems. Impaired facial emotion recognition has been suggested as a possible underlying mechanism, although impairments may depend on the type and intensity of emotions. We investigated facial emotion recognition in children with (subthreshold) ADHD and controls using a novel task with children's faces of emotional expressions varying in type and intensity. We further investigated associations between emotion recognition accuracy and social and emotional problems in the ADHD group. 83 children displaying ADHD symptoms and 30 controls (6-12 years) completed the Morphed Facial Emotion Recognition Task (MFERT). The MFERT assesses emotion recognition accuracy on four emotions using five expression intensity levels. Teachers and parents rated social and emotional problems on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Repeated measures analysis of variance revealed that the ADHD group showed poorer emotion recognition accuracy compared to controls across emotions (small effect). The significant group by expression intensity interaction (small effect) showed that the increase in accuracy with increasing expression intensity was smaller in the ADHD group compared to controls. Multiple regression analyses within the ADHD group showed that emotion recognition accuracy was inversely related to social and emotional problems, but not prosocial behavior. Not only children with an ADHD diagnosis, but also children with subthreshold ADHD experience impairments in facial emotion recognition. This impairment is predictive for social and emotional problems, which may suggest that emotion recognition may contribute to the development of social and emotional problems in these children. ispartof: European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry vol:31 issue:5 pages:1-13 ispartof: location:Germany status: Published online

Mimicry is suggested to be one of the strategies via which we enhance social affiliation. Although recent studies have shown that, like adults, young children selectively mimic the facial actions of in-group over out-group members, it is unknown whether this early mimicry behavior is driven by affiliative motivations. Here we investigated the functional role of facial mimicry in early childhood by testing whether observing third-party ostracism, which has previously been shown to enhance children's affiliative behaviors, enhances facial mimicry in 30-month-olds. Toddlers were presented with videos in which one shape was ostracized by other shapes or with control videos that did not show any ostracism. Before and after this, the toddlers observed videos of models performing facial actions (e.g., eyebrow raising, mouth opening) while we measured activation over their corresponding facial muscles using electromyography (EMG) to obtain an index of facial mimicry. We also coded the videos of the sessions for overt imitation. We found that toddlers in the ostracism condition showed greater facial mimicry at posttest than toddlers in the control condition, as indicated by both EMG and behavioral coding measures. Although the exact mechanism underlying this result needs to be investigated in future studies, this finding is consistent with social affiliation accounts of mimicry and suggests that mimicry may play a key role in maintaining affiliative bonds when toddlers perceive the risk of social exclusion. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.

The emotion that someone expresses has consequences for how that person is treated. We study whether people display emotions strategically. In two laboratory experiments, participants play task delegation games in which managers assign a task to one of two workers. When assigning the task, managers see pictures of the workers and we vary whether getting the task is desirable or not. We find that workers strategically adapt their emotional expressions to the incentives they face, and that it indeed pays off to do so. Yet, workers do not exploit the full potential of the strategic display of emotions.

The emotion that someone expresses has consequences for how that personis treated. We study whether people display emotions strategically. In two laboratory experiments, participants play task delegation games in which managersassign a task to one of two workers. When assigning the task, managers seepictures of the workers and we vary whether getting the task is desirable or not. We find that workers strategically adapt their emotional expressions to the incentives they face, and that it indeed pays off to do so. Yet, workers do notexploit the full potential of the strategic display of emotions.

Objective To identify the ways in which physicians, patients and interpreters express emotions, react to emotional expressions and/or coordinate the emotional interaction in interpreter-mediated consultations (IMCs). Methods We systematically searched four databases and screened 10 307 articles. The following inclusion criteria were applied: 1) participants are patients with limited proficiency in the host language, physicians and professional interpreters, 2) analysis of patient-physician-interpreter interaction, 3) focus on emotions, 4) in vivo spoken language interpretation, and 5) authentic primary data. Results The results of 7 included studies suggest that physicians, patients and interpreters work together and verbally and paraverbally contribute to the co-construction of emotional communication (EC) in IMCs. However, a decrease in EC might still compromise the patient’s quality of care in IMCs. Conclusion There is a dearth of scientific evidence of EC as an interactional process between participants in IMCs. More research on under investigated modes of communication and emotions is needed to advance our understanding. For now, EC seems to be subject to the successful interaction between participants in IMCs. Practice implications Evidence-based curricula of interprofessional education between physicians and interpreters on EC in IMCs could be beneficial to the effective co-construction of EC in IMCS. ispartof: Patient Education and Counseling vol:103 issue:1 pages:33-43 ispartof: location:Ireland status: published

Recent investigations of emotion body perception have established that perceiving fearful body expressions critically triggers activity in dorsal stream structures related to action preparation. However, the causal contributions of these areas remain unclear. In the current experiment, we addressed this issue using online transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) in the dorsal stream and visual areas (extrastriate body area - EBA in the ventral stream and early visual cortex - EVC). Participants performed a delayed-match-to-sample task requiring detection of a change in posture of body expressions that were either neutral or fearful. Results revealed a significant interaction between the stimulation site and the emotional valence of stimuli, indicating that processing of emotional versus neutral bodies is affected differentially by stimulation of different central areas in body processing. IPL stimulation specifically enhanced fearful body processing. These findings relate emotion processing to separate processing streams, and moreover provide the first evidence that IPL plays a causal role in processing of fearful bodies.

D-amphetamine (dAMPH) and methylphenidate (MPH) are stimulants used in the treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Preclinical studies have shown that in healthy animals, dAMPH induces dopamine (DA) dysfunction, as evidenced for instance by loss of DA levels and its transporters. It has also been suggested that DA plays an important role in emotional processing, and that altered DA-ergic intervention may modulate amygdala function. To explore the role of the DA system in emotional processing we examined emotional processing using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in eight male recreational users of dAMPH and eight male healthy controls. We compared brain activation between both groups during an emotional face-processing task with and without an oral MPH challenge. All subjects were abstinent for at least 2 weeks during the baseline scan. The second scan was performed on the same day 1A1/2 hours after receiving an oral dose of 35 mg MPH. A significant Valence*Group interaction (p = .037) indicated amygdala hyperreactivity to fearful facial expressions in dAMPH users that wasrobust against adjustment for age (p = .015). Furthermore, duration of amphetamine use in years was positively correlated with amygdala reactivity in dAMPH users (r = .76; p = .029). These exploratory findings are in line with previous findings suggesting that DA plays a role in emotional processing.

Bright light can affect mood states and social behaviours. Here, we tested potential interacting effects of light and dopamine on facial emotion recognition. Participants were 32 women with subsyndromal seasonal affective disorder tested in either a bright (3000 lux) or dim light (10 lux) environment. Each participant completed two test days, one following the ingestion of a phenylalanine/tyrosine-deficient mixture and one with a nutritionally balanced control mixture, both administered double blind in a randomised order. Approximately four hours post-ingestion participants completed a self-report measure of mood followed by a facial emotion recognition task. All testing took place between November and March when seasonal symptoms would be present. Following acute phenylalanine/tyrosine depletion (APTD), compared to the nutritionally balanced control mixture, participants in the dim light condition were more accurate at recognising sad faces, less likely to misclassify them, and faster at responding to them, effects that were independent of changes in mood. Effects of APTD on responses to sad faces in the bright light group were less consistent. There were no APTD effects on responses to other emotions, with one exception: a significant light × mixture interaction was seen for the reaction time to fear, but the pattern of effect was not predicted a priori or seen on other measures. Together, the results suggest that the processing of sad emotional stimuli might be greater when dopamine transmission is low. Bright light exposure, used for the treatment of both seasonal and non-seasonal mood disorders, might produce some of its benefits by preventing this effect.

The neural basis of emotion perception has mostly been investigated with single face or body stimuli. However, in daily life one may also encounter affective expressions by groups, for example, an angry mob or an exhilarated concert crowd. In what way is brain activity modulated when several individuals express similar rather than different emotions? We investigated this question using an experimental design in which we presented two stimuli simultaneously, with same or different emotional expressions. We hypothesized that, in the case of two same-emotion stimuli, brain activity would be enhanced, while in the case of two different emotions, one emotion would interfere with the effect of the other. The results showed that the simultaneous perception of different affective body expressions leads to a deactivation of the amygdala and a reduction of cortical activity. It was revealed that the processing of fearful bodies, compared to different-emotion bodies, relied more strongly on saliency and action triggering regions in inferior parietal lobe and insula, while happy bodies drove the occipito-temporal cortex more strongly. We showed that this design could be used to uncover important differences between brain networks underlying fearful and happy emotions. The enhancement of brain activity for unambiguous affective signals expressed by several people simultaneously supports adaptive behaviour in critical situations.

We examined the association between celebratory responses after successful soccer penalty kicks and the outcome of a penalty shootout. Individually displayed post-shot behaviours in penalty shootouts held in World Cups and European Championships (N=151) were rated on the presence of universally distinct and recognizable behaviours associated with positive emotions. Using chi-square analyses we investigated which behaviours were associated with winning the shootout, when the relative standing between the teams was equal. Players who engaged in certain celebratory post-shot behaviours were more likely to be in the team that ultimately won the penalty shootout. In particular, celebrations including both arms were associated with winning the shootout. It was more likely that the next kick taken by an opponent was missed after a player displayed these behaviours after a goal than when he did not. The findings are interpreted in terms of emotional contagion-that is, the transference of emotions from individuals onto teammates and opponents. It is suggested that the individual expression of post-performance emotions serves a direct purpose in enhancing future team performance and that emotional contagion is an important process in the context of elite sport performance.

Social interaction starts with perception of other persons. One of the first steps in perception is processing of basic information such as spatial frequencies (SF), which represent details and global information. However, although behavioural perception of SF is well investigated, the developmental trajectory of the temporal characteristics of SF processing is not yet well understood. The speed of processing of this basic visual information is crucial, as it determines the speed and possibly accuracy of subsequent visual and social processes. The current study investigated developmental changes in the temporal characteristics of selective processing of high SF (HSF; details) versus low SF (LSF; global). To this end, brain activity was measured using EEG in 108 children aged 3-15 years, while HSF or LSF grating stimuli were presented. Interest was in the temporal characteristics of brain activity related to LSF and HSF processing, specifically at early (N80) or later (P1 or N2) peaks in brain activity. Analyses revealed that from 7-8 years onwards HSF but not LSF stimuli evoked an N80 peak. In younger children, aged 3-8 years, the visual manipulation mainly affected the visual N2 peak. Selective processing of HSF versus LSF thus occurs at a rather late time-point (N2 peak) in young children. Although behavioural research previously showed that 3-6 year-olds can perceive detailed information, the current results point out that selective processing of HSF versus LSF is still delayed in these children. The delayed processing in younger children could impede the use of LSF and HSF for emotional face processing. Thus, the current study is a starting point for understanding changes in basic visual processing which underlie social development.

Contains fulltext : 124201.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) Background: Impairments in facial mimicry are considered a proxy for deficits in affective empathy and have been demonstrated in 10 year old children and in adolescents with disruptive behavior disorder (DBD). However, it is not known whether these impairments are already present at an earlier age. Emotional deficits have also been shown in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Aims: To examine facial mimicry in younger, 6-7 year old children with DBD and with ADHD. Methods: Electromyographic (EMG) activity in response to emotional facial expressions was recorded in 47 children with DBD, 18 children with ADHD and 35 healthy developing children. Results: All groups displayed significant facial mimicry to the emotional expressions of other children. No group differences between children with DBD, children with ADHD and healthy developing children were found. In addition, no differences in facial mimicry were found between the clinical group (i.e., all children with a diagnosis) and the typically developing group in an analysis with ADHD symptoms as a covariate, and no differences were found between the clinical children and the typically developing children with DBD symptoms as a covariate. Conclusion: Facial mimicry in children with DBD and ADHD throughout the first primary school years was unimpaired, in line with studies on empathy using other paradigms. 7 p.

Background. Facial expressions of emotions represent classic stimuli for the study of social cognition. Developing virtual dynamic facial expressions of emotions, however, would open-up possibilities, both for fundamental and clinical research. For instance, virtual faces allow real-time Human-Computer retroactions between physiological measures and the virtual agent. Objectives. The goal of this study was to initially assess concomitant and construct validity of a newly developed set of virtual faces expressing 6 fundamental emotions (happiness, surprise, anger, sadness, fear, or disgust). Recognition rates, facial electromyography (zygomatic major and corrugator supercilii muscles), and regional gaze fixation latencies (eyes and mouth regions) were compared in 41 adult volunteers (20 ♂, 21 ♀) during the presentation of video clips depicting real vs. virtual adults expressing emotions. Results. Emotions expressed by each sets of stimuli were similarly recognized, both by men and women. Accordingly, both sets of stimuli elicited similar activation of facial muscles and similar ocular fixation times in eye regions from man and woman participants. Conclusion. Further validation studies can be performed with these virtual faces among clinical populations known to present social cognition difficulties. Brain-Computer Interface studies with feedback-feed forward interactions based on facial emotion expressions can also be conducted with these stimuli.

Seven to 12-year-old children with a Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDDNOS) were compared with normal, healthy children of the same age and sex on three different emotional role-taking tasks. In these tasks, children had to use person-specific information to make an inference about another child's emotional reaction and behaviour, Significant differences were found between the PDDNOS group and control group: PDDNOS children performed worse on all three role-taking tasks. However, the differences on one of these tasks could be completely explained by intelligence differences between the two groups. On the other tasks, differences could not or be partially explained by intelligence differences. The results of this study led to the formulation of a more specific hypothesis, namely that PDDNOS children might have problems interpreting social information when affectively charged background information has to be used.

It is part of basic emotions like fear or anger that they prepare the brain to act adaptively. Hence scenes representing emotional events are normally associated with characteristic adaptive behavior. Normally, face and body representation areas in the brain are modulated by these emotions when presented in the face or body. Here, we provide neuroimaging evidence (using functional magnetic resonance imaging) that the extrastriate body area (EBA) is highly responsive when subjects observe isolated faces presented in emotional scenes. This response of EBA to threatening scenes in which no body is present gives rise to speculation about its function. We discuss the possibility that the brain reacts proactively to the emotional meaning of the scene. ispartof: PLoS One vol:7 issue:6 ispartof: location:United States status: published

Translational psychiatry 2012(2), e99 (2012). doi:10.1038/tp.2012.29, Published by Nature Publishing Group, London

The role of cognitive sensitivity to light in the development of seasonal affective disorder (SAD, winter type) was studied by comparing 29 SAD patients during remission with 29 non-depressed controls matched by sex and age, and by relating measures for cognitive sensitivity of remitted SAD patients to the onset of a depressive episode during the following autumn/winter. To ensure that only cognitive processes were involved, the subjects were exposed to symbolic light. Thr;ee schematic drawings of ambiguous faces expressing different emotions were embedded in light or dark backgrounds for tl;is purpose. The subjects rated the various facial expressions with respect to the degree of elation-sadness, rejection-invitation, and activation-sleepiness. SAD patients saw larger differences in activation between faces embedded in light and dark backgrounds than controls, perceiving less activation in faces with dark backgrounds. Furthermore, the larger the difference that SAD patients saw in invitation between faces with light and dark backgrounds, the earlier they became depressed in the subsequent autumn/winter. Only the SAD patients who became depressed early (before December 21) differed from controls in the perception of invitation. Results are interpreted within the framework of psychological theories on the development of depression and suggest that altered cognitive sensitivity of SAD patients to light plays a role in the development of depressive episodes.

In two studies, we used a negative affective priming task with pictures of angry (Study 1), sad (Study 2), and happy faces (Studies 1 and 2) to measure attentional inhibition of emotional stimuli as a function of attachment style. Results showed that attachment avoidance was associated with a stronger inhibition of both angry and sad faces. This indicates that the regulatory strategies of avoidant individuals involve inhibition of different types of negative, but not positive, stimuli. Attachment anxiety, on the other hand, showed no association with inhibitory responding to negative stimuli, although we did find indications of impaired inhibitory processing of happy faces in Study 1. The results are discussed in relation to current evidence on avoidant affect-regulation strategies.

In everyday life, emotional events are perceived by multiple sensory systems. Research has shown that recognition of emotions in one modality is biased towards the emotion expressed in a simultaneously presented but task irrelevant modality. In the present study, we combine visual and auditory stimuli that convey similar affective meaning but have a low probability of co-occurrence in everyday life. Dynamic face-blurred whole body expressions of a person grasping an object while expressing happiness or sadness are presented in combination with fragments of happy or sad instrumental classical music. Participants were instructed to categorize the emotion expressed by the visual stimulus. The results show that recognition of body language is influenced by the auditory stimuli. These findings indicate that crossmodal influences as previously observed for audiovisual speech can also be obtained from the ignored auditory to the attended visual modality in audiovisual stimuli that consist of whole bodies and music. ispartof: Brain Topography vol:21 issue:3 pages:216-220 ispartof: location:United States status: published

The present study describes electrophysiological differentiation of "Facial Expressions" by using the method of event-related oscillations (EROS). These measures were used to assess electrical manifestations of emotional expressions of 20 healthy subjects exposed to neutral, angry, and happy" faces. The present study extended previous analysis to frequency windows of delta (0.5-3.5 Hz) and theta (5-8.5 Hz) oscillations. No significant differences among responses to various face expression stimuli were observed, however, topological differences in response to all facial expressions were found. Delta oscillatory responses in the parietal-temporal-occipital locations were larger than the frontal and central locations, whereas theta oscillatory responses in the right temporal-occipital electrodes were larger than the right central electrodes. Assessment of topologically distributed multiple oscillations opens a new avenue for understanding of the electrophysiology of recognition of "faces" and "facial expressions". (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Two studies examined an unexplored motivational determinant of facial emotion recognition: observer regulatory focus. It was predicted that a promotion focus would enhance facial emotion recognition relative to a prevention focus because the attentional strategies associated with promotion focus enhance performance on well-learned or innate tasks - such as facial emotion recognition. In Study 1, a promotion or a prevention focus was experimentally induced and better facial emotion recognition was observed in a promotion focus compared to a prevention focus. In Study 2, individual differences in chronic regulatory focus were assessed and attention allocation was measured using eye tracking during the facial emotion recognition task. Results indicated that the positive relation between a promotion focus and facial emotion recognition is mediated by shorter fixation duration on the face which reflects a pattern of attention allocation matched to the eager strategy in a promotion focus (i.e., striving to make hits). A prevention focus did not have an impact neither on perceptual processing nor on facial emotion recognition. Taken together, these findings demonstrate important mechanisms and consequences of observer motivational orientation for facial emotion recognition.

It is widely accepted that autism is associated with disordered emotion processing, and in particular, with deficits of emotional reciprocity such as impaired emotion recognition and reduced empathy. However, a close examination of the literature reveals wide heterogeneity within the autistic population with respect to emotional competence. Here we argue that, where observed, emotional impairments are due to alexithymia - a condition that frequently co-occurs with autism - rather than a feature of autism per se. Alexithymia is a condition characterized by a reduced ability to identify and describe one’s own emotion, but which results in reduced empathy and an impaired ability to recognize the emotions of others. We briefly review studies of emotion processing in alexithymia, and in autism, before describing a recent series of studies directly testing this ‘alexithymia hypothesis’. If found to be correct, the alexithymia hypothesis has wide-reaching implications for the study of autism, and how we might best support sub-groups of autistic individuals with, and without, accompanying alexithymia. Finally, we note the presence of elevated rates of alexithymia, and inconsistent reports of emotional impairments, in eating disorders, schizophrenia, substance abuse, Parkinson’s Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, and anxiety disorders. We speculate that examining the contribution of alexithymia to the emotional symptoms of these disorders may bear fruit\ud in the same way that it is starting to do in autism.

These days employees well- being is the most growingly pertinent and mandatory consideration in the modern workplace of any organization. Until recently, emotions were considered a forbidden topic in the working place. They were no person's concern, and they had no place in business. They were not allowed to discuss it and those issues must always be left at home. Today, research on how emotions affect inventiveness, production, and profession success has put a jaunt on the subject. They are realizing that how well they elicit and sustain positive emotional states in their employees plays a major role in their organization's victory or defeat. This is because emotions directly influence the five major sources of competitive advantage in today's marketplace: Intellectual Capital, Customer Service, Organizational Reactivity, Production, Employee appeal and retentivity. By becoming more knowledgeable about how emotions affect the primary sources of competitive advantage, organizations can help their management team recognize the critical connection of employee's emotions and then try to make it right before it affects the productivity. In this paper, the proposed approach to the problem of employee's emotions are resolved by detecting their emotions using C#. At the time of entering into the organization, face of the employees are captured to analyze their emotions and stored in the database.

The emotion that someone expresses has consequences for how that person is treated. We study whether people display emotions strategically. In two laboratory experiments, participants play task delegation games in which managers assign a task to one of two workers. When assigning the task, managers see pictures of the workers and we vary whether getting the task is desirable or not. We find that workers strategically adapt their emotional expressions to the incentives they face, and that it indeed pays off to do so. Yet, workers do not exploit the full potential of the strategic display of emotions.