How many muscles to frown

Varying numbers get tossed around when it comes to claiming the number of muscles it takes to frown. A frown that merely lowers the corners of the mouth with a slight downward pouting of the lower lip uses only three muscle pairs, which means six muscles to frown. And if that frown is further reduced to a robotic expression, it uses only two muscle pairs, or four muscles. Does it really take more muscles to frown? It depends on the frown, or the smile.

If you think of a frown as just lowering the corners of the mouth, then it takes an equal number of muscles four to frown and to smile. How many muscles are in a smile? If we look at a smile that only raises the corners of the lips and the upper lip, it takes only five muscle pairs, or 10 total muscles, to do so. However, if the smile is further reduced to a robotic expression of just raising the corners of the mouth, then it takes only two muscle pairs four muscles to smile.

What is the smiling muscle? The zygomaticus major is the muscle that we think of as the smiling muscle. Are men or women happier? Sources Ackerman, Kenneth J, Ph. June 17, Handbook of emotions second edition. Guilford Press, ISBN , E-mail correspondence. May 14, Patel, Alpen A. Cite This! There has been a long standing debate about people saying that it takes a lot more muscles to frown as compared to smile. This is not true that it takes around 48 muscles to frown, it takes a lot less and it is safe to say that the number of muscles taken to frown and to smile are almost similar with just 1 or 2 muscles difference.

Frowning is a complex expression of face which involves the movement of multiple facial muscles to bring the movement of the Eyebrows, Eyelids, upper lip, lower lip, chin etc.

How many muscles does it take to Smile. What differs from person to person is the way they Frown, there are multiple ways in which people frown and according to some studies it is seen that it depends on gender, race and sometimes people from different locations frown differently. This means that the number of muscles used to frown also differs.

Depressor Labii Inferioris: 2 muscles Lower the Lower lip on both sides. Researchers disagree over whether each emotion maps to a particular arrangement of muscles, or whether one smile can stand for many feelings. Research suggests that people tend to greet smiles with smiles of their own, whereas frowns only draw return frowns about half the time.

Not only that, but smiles work in both directions: Just as happiness can make you smile, studies have shown that, thanks to a quirk of the autonomic nervous system, smiling can make you happy.

Unfortunately, the same holds true for expressions of sadness and distress. Both phenomena relate to mirror neurons — brain cells that spark up both when we observe an action, such as a smile, and when we take part in it.