THE FACE, BOTH PARTICLE, AND WAVE: THE MEASUREMENT PROBLEM IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE AND THE DIFFRACTIVE QUEERING OF ITS TIMEKEEPING DIAGRAMS
THE FACE, BOTH PARTICLE, AND WAVE: THE MEASUREMENT PROBLEM IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE AND THE DIFFRACTIVE QUEERING OF ITS TIMEKEEPING DIAGRAMS

Summary/Abstract: In this paper, I critically analogize the diffraction phenomenon, drawing analogies be- tween quantum physics and psychological science, double-slit experiments and timekeeping dia- grams, as well as quantal and facial particle-ness and wave-ness. Different experiments on dynamic faces diffract importantly different information. That is, methodology poses a measurement prob- lem in the study of the face. The case study for my analogization of diffraction is the epistemic mode of the timeline, including the bar graph timeline and the histogram timeline, utilized for the temporal dynamics of our facial behavior in the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), its applica- tions, and adaptations. Now more than ever before, FACS-based automated facial behavior analysis systems are increasingly utilized in laboratory applications. Nevertheless, due to constraints in these systems, extracting path information out of experimental movement behavior more often than not flattens difference and generalizes diversity across the biological and the cultural features of the face. The diffractive queering of experimental measurements in psychological science and its time- keeping diagrams evidence how the face is entangled with its measure. Given this entanglement, when it comes to the temporal dynamics of facial behavior, measuring particle-like and wave-like behavior is not only epistemologically possible but also ethically necessary. This is because human facial behavior diffraction affords a deeper richness of complex information than either particle or wave alone. Only by taking into consideration both particle and wave behavior via diffractive queering of timekeeping diagrams can we move closer to making observable, and thereby making knowable, the human face.

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