Facial expressions of emotion: an old controversy and new findings

Evidence on universals in facial expression of emotion and renewed controversy about how to interpret that evidence is discussed. New findings on the capability of voluntary facial action to generate changes in both autonomic and central nervous system activity are presented, as well as a discussion of the possible mechanisms relevant to this phenomenon. Finally, new work on the nature of smiling is reviewed which shows that it is possible to distinguish the smile when enjoyment is occurring from other types of smiling. Implications for the differences between voluntary and involuntary expression are considered.

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Facial Expressions of Emotion: New Findings, New Questions

Psychological Science ◽

10.1111/j.1467-9280.1992.tb00253.x ◽

1992 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. 34-38 ◽

Cited By ~ 314

Author(s):

Paul Ekman

Keyword(s):

Central Nervous System ◽

Cultural Differences ◽

Facial Expressions ◽

New Work ◽

Facial Expression Of Emotion ◽

Nervous System Activity ◽

Expression Of Emotion ◽

Central Nervous System Activity ◽

New Findings ◽

Facial Expressions Of Emotion

The evidence on universals in facial expression of emotion, renewed controversy about that evidence, and new findings on cultural differences are reviewed. New findings on the capability for voluntarily made facial expressions to generate changes in both autonomic and central nervous system activity are discussed, and possible mechanisms by which this could occur are outlined. Finally, new work which has identified how to distinguish the smile of enjoyment from other types of smiling is described.

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Capacity-Free Automatic Processing of Facial Expressions of Emotion

10.31234/osf.io/jpr6t ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Joshua W Maxwell ◽

Eric Ruthruff ◽

michael joseph

Keyword(s):

Facial Expression ◽

Facial Expressions ◽

Face Processing ◽

Emotional Expressions ◽

Facial Expression Of Emotion ◽

Expression Of Emotion ◽

Facial Expressions Of Emotion ◽

Correspondence Effect ◽

Experimental Logic ◽

Face Task

Are facial expressions of emotion processed automatically? Some authors have not found this to be the case (Tomasik et al., 2009). Here we revisited the question with a novel experimental logic – the backward correspondence effect (BCE). In three dual-task studies, participants first categorized a sound (Task 1) and then indicated the location of a target face (Task 2). In Experiment 1, Task 2 required participants to search for one facial expression of emotion (angry or happy). We observed positive BCEs, indicating that facial expressions of emotion bypassed the central attentional bottleneck and thus were processed in a capacity-free, automatic manner. In Experiment 2, we replicated this effect but found that morphed emotional expressions (which were used by Tomasik) were not processed automatically. In Experiment 3, we observed similar BCEs for another type of face processing previously shown to be capacity-free – identification of familiar faces (Jung et al., 2013). We conclude that facial expressions of emotion are identified automatically when sufficiently unambiguous.

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