Botox injections temporarily paralyse the muscles in your face, sometimes causing it to appear frozen in one expression. Not only can this be confusing to others, but researchers in Italy now say it affects your own perception as well.
Botox makes a person unable to replicate some of the expressions they observe, and researchers say blocking this often imperceptible response can make it difficult to understand the emotional meaning.
For years, people around the world have turned to injections of Botulin toxin Type A, also known as Botox, for cosmetic procedures. Roughly 250,000 procedures were done in Italy alone in 2014, but researchers now warn that this popular treatment may be affecting the way you see the world.
According to a study from the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste, Italy, the temporary paralysis of the face can block a person’s ‘proprioceptive feedback’. This process helps us to understand the emotions we observe by reproducing them on our own bodies, they explain.
“The thankfully temporary paralysis of facial muscles that this toxin causes impairs our ability to capture the meaning of other people’s facial expressions,” said Jenny Baumeister, research scientist at SISSA.
The researchers analysed the emotional understanding of participants immediately after a Botox-based cosmetic procedure, and two weeks later.
This was compared with measurements from subjects that had no treatment.
“The negative effect is very clear when the expressions observed are subtle,” said Francesco Foroni, SISSA researcher who coordinated the study.
“For very intense stimuli, although there was a definite tendency to perform worse, the difference was not significant. On the other hand, for ‘equivocal’ stimuli that are more difficult to pick up, the effect of the paralysis was very strong.” This research taps into the concept of ‘embodied cognition.’
By this train of thought, humans reproduce the emotions they observe from others on their own body. So, if a person sees a smile, they too will smile – but this reaction is often automatic and imperceptible, the researchers explain. If subtle replication helps people to make sense of the emotions they see, the facial paralysis of Botox blocks this process, thus making it more difficult to understand the expressions of others.
The researchers say this could lead to unintentional miscommunication, through failure to pick up on another person’s emotional intentions. “Our study was devised to investigate embodied cognition,” said Foroni.
“At the same time, we think that awareness of this consequence will be of use to those involved in aesthetic medicine, not least to adequately inform people seeking to undergo these treatments.”