Feeling and facial efference: Implications of the vascular theory of emotion.

Is facial muscular movement capable of alterning emotional state? Facial feedback theories answer this question in the affirmative but do not specify the intervening process. Cognitive appraisal theories do not address this question at all. The vascular theory of emotional efference (VTEE) holds that facial muscular movement, by its action on the cavernous sinus, may restrict venous flow and thereby influence cooling of the arterial blood supply to the brain