This is scary.....could be the pic that set off the author.
Posted on 02/08/2016 10:57:30 AM PST by TigerClaws
It’s hard to look at Ted Cruz’s face. He’s a brilliant orator with a sharp legal mind. But his expression unsettles me. I know my reaction is visceral and automatic, but as a neurologist it is my business to notice things out of the ordinary and probe them. The Senator’s atypical expressions leave me uneasy.
Before I say why, note how many colleagues and former associates "loathe" him. A Bush alumnus told The New York Times' Frank Bruni, “Why do people take such an instant dislike to Ted Cruz? It just saves time.†Former Senate Majority leader Bob Dole says, "Nobody likes him," while Rep. Peter King sees "malice." According to The Washington Post, screenwriter Craig Mazin, Cruz's former Princeton roommate, has called him a "huge asshole," and "creepy." He's Tweeted, "Getting emails blaming me for not smothering Ted Cruz in his sleep in 1988." The distaste for Cruz even extends beyond the U.S.: Germans say Backpfeifengesicht, meaning a face in need of a good punch.
Humans learn to read faces from the day they are born. Infants readily respond to smiles. They imitate others’ facial expressions and gestures. During the first months of life, brain activity readings trace the development of their body maps. These brain maps allow an infant to recognized similarities between self and other—the foundation on which all social cognition rests, especially trust.
Our stone–age ancestors learned to read faces and rapidly tell friend from foe. While we live in a far different environment, we still possess the same stone–age brain as our distant relatives. Like them, we judge instantly. Automatically and more quickly than conscious reflection could manage, we weigh whether we like a new face or dislike the person behind it. Our social circuits, which are largely emotional, tell us whether to trust a person or not. Given a million years of practice, our brains are good at this.
Senator Cruz’s countenance doesn’t shift the way I expect typical faces to move. Human faces can’t help but broadcast what we feel, what we may be thinking, and even what we may intend. Many animals likewise broadcast what’s happening in their heads, as Charles Darwin illustrated at length in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.
Skill in reading faces is so fundamental to our species that 54 facial muscles orchestrate its endless nuances, which others read like a book just as we read them. Only some of these many facial muscles are under voluntary control, which is one reason it is so hard to maintain a poker face or counterfeit a smile.
I have rarely, if ever, seen a conventional smile from Senator Cruz. In a natural smile the corners of the mouth go up; these muscles we can control voluntarily as well. But muscles circling the eyes are involuntary only; they make the eyes narrow, forming crow’s feet at the outside corners. Even the Mona Lisa’s smile shows this. The eyes give away one’s game and let us tell forged from genuine smiles. Grandma may have told you to put on a happy face, but you can’t if it isn’t heartfelt.
No matter the emotional coloring of Senator Cruz’s outward rhetoric, his mouth typically tightens into the same straight line. If it deviates from this, the corners of his mouth bend down, not upwards. The outside of his eyebrows bend down, too, when he emotes, something so atypical that it disturbs me. Typically a person’s eyebrows arch up, as does the corrugator muscle that furrow the forehead. What is such a downturned face signaling?
Downturned expressions usually signal disagreeableness or disgust. But I honestly don’t know because such an expression is rare in the context of public presentations that are meant to win people over. He may well be unaware that the message of his body language is incongruent with his words.
And then there is that open “O†of the Senator’s mouth that photos capture over and over. I don’t know what to make of it. But he makes it when he overtly emotes—shows us as well as tells us that he is determined, irritated, or above it all—whereas speakers who are angry, indignant, or rhetorically displeased push their mouth forward in a pout. He doesn’t. Google “Ted Cruz smiling,†and judge for yourself. For the record I am not a Democrat. I’m at a loss to verbalize what unsettles me so when I watch the freshman senator. But it leaves me cold.
Wow... a whole bunch of RINO idiots - and their fellow travelers at the NYT - don’t like Cruz. In other news, water is wet.
Having spent over thirty years in courtrooms trying cases, I can tell you the expression described in this article is the last thing you want. What you do want, and what the best trial attorneys have, is a pleasant face, almost avuncular, so that everything you say seems to come forth with a tone as clear, pleasant, and untroubled as a summer sky of the deepest azure. Who would not be inclined to believe anything one said, if presented like that.
HUH??
What?
And Trump’s expressions are normal?
Now this is getting idiotic.
True. Too much emphasis is placed on superficial outward appearance. The reverse is also true. Handsome people have been evil such as Ted Bundy.
This is a repost IIRC you were one of the trumpiteers who glommed on to this statement from the gay leftist psychology boy.
No new material?
An inbred version of Drew Carey.
He has a likeability problem which is DOA in the general. We can howl about how its not fair, but the great unwashed not plugged into politics does go on affect, appearance, tonality as well as what the content of what you say. Cruz parrots all the right lines but he comes of as well....a lawyer and ideologue.
Trumps liberal positions on gay rights, eminent domain, and socialized medicine make me uneasy.
thanks for the info.
He has a huge nose and beady eyes. There might be something wrong with this mouth. When he smiles it is mostly open a little and a little movement with the mouth.
Copy it yourself and you will see.
Kind of like he had been botoxed.
Some of the non expression is likely due to legal and debate training. But the weird smile isn’t..it just part of what God gave him.
Name calling = CHECK
Gay slur = CHECK
Overall imbecility = CHECK
This is scary.....could be the pic that set off the author.
He looks like a gay Drew Carey.
Sweet Saviour, what’s next? His choice of ice cream flavors? The color of his socks? The brand of tires he uses on his car? Talk about looking for things to gripe about.
That’s what I was thinking. Who’s got the gif of the dozena of contorted Trump facial expressions?
This guy:
https://cdn.psychologytoday.com/sites/default/files/styles/profile/public/-3_23.jpg?itok=52rkzg7Z
Says Ted Cruz looks creepy when he looks like a stereotypical child molester?
Isn’t this the journal which has accepted perversion as normal?
Funny but true the authors background was vetted last sat when another trump to posted the same article, the on here evenparticipated in the thread,
So touching to see a pic trumpbot.
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