Expressing Pain

Effectively communicating pain is crucial in modern society, especially in healthcare environments. Facial expressions are one of the renown ways to communicate pain, but the degree to which individuals can extrapolate reliable and specific information about pain from facial muscle contraction is still unclear. Furthermore, pain assessment is often confounded by extra-facial features of contextual, social and personal nature, and these, in turn, might influence face processing. The present project aims at investigating with further detail the information conveyed by pain facial expressions, how observers evaluate such information, and the role played by extra-facial influences in the whole process.