Facial expressions are part of our body language and they are the most used to show what are our feelings in regards with certain activities or certain persons. Facial expressions can show surprise, happiness, disgust, sadness, confusion, fear, excitement, desire or contempt, and are the most universal forms of body language (Kendra Cherry, Understanding Body Language).One of the researchers in this area, Paul Ekman, found a correlation between facial expressions and particular emotions. The eyes, the mouth, gestures, the arms and legs, posture, they all show what a person feels at a certain time in a certain situation. Breading and speaking are also ways in which the body express attitudes and feelings, where different ways of breading can show if a person is frighten(open the mouth to get more oxygen), if a person is hyperventilated (breathing very fast) or if a person is relaxed (slow deep breathing), and where speaking is a tool to express feeling using the mouth which is an additional tool to send signals to other people. Eyes are another tool which is very used as a part of the body language and can express fear, excitement, disgust or sexual attraction.
According to a study of pupil size and attraction, Hess (1965) showed that men found
drawings of women’s faces to be more attractive when the pupils were larger, and this findings have been replicated using diferent methods to discover the correlation between the eyes and attraction towards others (Bull & Shead, 1979; Hess, 1975;Stass & Willis, 1967; Tomlinson et al., 1978).
Gestures on the other hand,are more direct and obvious body language signals and they correlate with eye or mouth expressions in order to enhance the signal sent to the other person (a thumb up with a big smile show an highly agreement).
There are so many what can body language do and express because our body is continuously learning on how to express better what our brain is thinking.
Straker, D. (n.d.). Mouth body language. Changing Minds. Found online at http://changingminds.org/techniques/body/parts_body_language/mouth_body_language.htm
Straker, D. (n.d.). Leg body language. Changing Minds. Found online at http://changingminds.org/techniques/body/parts_body_language/leg_body_language.htm
Tombs, S & Silverman I, (2004) Pupillometry A sexual selection approach, online article found at http://boileddown.me/storage/pupil.pdf
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