Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 November 1894 — FACIAL RESEMBLANCES. [ARTICLE]

FACIAL RESEMBLANCES.

Why People Living Long Together Resemble Each Other. ' The fact that two people who live long together tend to look alike is accounted for by unconscious mimicry reacting upon the muscles of expression in the same way that a ruling passion does. The tendency, says a writer in Blackwood’s Magazine, to facial imitation is very general— in lact, almost universal— and may be so marked as to be easily noticed; so that when two people are engaged in animated conversation, the expression of the listener may often be seen to echo that of the speaker. How “infectious” is a smile or a laugh, even when the idea which gave rise to it in the first case is not transferred! Several times, when talking to young people, I have suddenly and purposely adopted some change of expression, such as raising of the eyebrows; and this, although not the least apropos to the words spoken at the time, has instantly evoked a like movement on the faces before me. The response was quite involuntary and was a pure piece of instinctive reflex action. Why does a yawn spread like pestilence through the room when conversation flags? I know of those who have started such an epidemic by a little piece of acting, and not a mouth in the company (save the guilty one) knew wLy it gaped. Have not we all noticed that a man of marked individuality becomes a center of physical influence to those who .wait on his words, so that his gestures, tones of voice and turns of phrase are reI know a tutor whose peculiarities of speech and carriage have been adopted more or less by every one of his pupils during the last six years, and several of them have coiiie to resemble him in features. This unconscious imitation of expression is very noticeable in children. Has it occurred to many careful parents that the good looks of their daughters may depend in no slight degree upon their choice of nurse girls and governesses?

For some reason which we cannot fathom the imitative faculty is so ingrained in us that what the eye perceives the brain makes haste to reproduce without stopping to ask our permission; and where two people live long together the‘facial muscles of each are constantly receiving stimuli prompting them to mimicry, As in the case of the emotions these influences may be infinitesimal at any given moment, and may give rise to no visible change of expression. Yet in the course of time they tend to mold the whole countenance, feature for feature, into an almost exact facsimile of another.