Muscles and How They Control Facial Expressions

When a person moves their face, whether it's to blink, to smile, to laugh, to frown, to cry etc. a variety of different muscles are used and work together in order to show these expressions visually.  Figure 1 shows various facial expressions by the same person:

Figure 1 shows many facial emotions that a person can make using various muscles

Without these muscles, every emotion would look exactly the same. Baring this in mind, you wouldn't be able to tell when someone was happy, or sad. Wouldn't life be boring? Figure 2 shows a human face with every major facial muscle labelled.

Figure 2 shows human face with all muscles labelled

In order for a mouth to open and shut - the Buccinator, the Temporalis, the Masseter and the Platysma muscles are used, along with the lower jaw bone (Kidport, 2012).

The Orbicularis Oris muscle is responsible for lip movement, especially when talking, smiling, eating and when you are sad (Kidport, 2012).

The Orbicularis Oculi is responsible for eye movements such as opening and closing the eye, widening the eye and squinting. This muscle also contracts when you smile and your eyes turn up in the corners. Working in conjunction with the Occipitofrontalis, these muscles move the eyebrows too (Kidport, 2012).

In order to smile, 12 muscles in the face move, and in order to frown 11 muscles move (Wisegeek, 2012).

Cultural Differences

According to a study by University of Glasgow published and documented on Cell Press (2009), people from different cultures read facial expressions differently. Typically, westeners tend to look at the eyes and the mouth equally, however easterners tend to focus more on the eyes and disregard the lips somewhat. This meant that during the investigation, easterners made more mistakes when expressions in the eyes looked similar compared to westerners.

This is interesting because previously, I discovered how different cultures mistook hand signals and misread body language as it varies from place to place. Now I have learnt that expressions play a very important role in how a character comes across.

In Terms Of The Project

Although penguins will have a different facial and muscle structure to a human, this research will still be applicable in my project because my penguin will be personified and will have human behaviours so that the target audience can relate easier. 

The penguin will be opening and closing its beak in order to speak, he will blink, his eyes will widen and glow red and his eyebrows will wiggle and move up and down in an angry manner.  

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References

Kidport, 2012. Image of Head and Face Muscles. [online] Available at: <http://www.kidport.com/reflib/science/HumanBody/MuscularSystem/images/FaceMuscles.jpg>
Last Accessed: 28/04/2012

Kidport, 2012. Head and Face Muscles. [online] Available at: 
http://www.kidport.com/reflib/science/HumanBody/MuscularSystem/HeadFaceMuscles.htm
Last Accessed: 28/04/2012

Cell Press. "Facial Expressions Show Language Barriers, Too." ScienceDaily, 13 Aug. 2009. Web. 29 Apr. 2012.
ScienceDaily, 2012. Image showing different facial expressions. [online] Available at:
<http://images.sciencedaily.com/2009/08/090813142131-large.jpg>
Last Accessed: 28/04/2012

Wisegeek, 2012. How Many Muscles Are Used To Smile. [online] Available at: <http://www.wisegeek.com/how-many-muscles-are-used-to-smile.htm>
Last Accessed: 28/04/2012