Low Recognition of Emotion from Spontaneous Facial Expressions of New Guineans

1. Low Recognition of Emotion from Spontaneous Facial Expressions of New Guineans Pamela Naab & James Russell*Boston College *Contact: russeljm@bc.edu • Limitations of these studies: • Small number of emotions studied • Blends not included • Results cannot specify whether • Emotions not translated into facial expressions in the first place? • Or, could it be that observers failed to recognize the emotion? The Study Stimuli- • Spontaneous facial expressions photographed, analyzed, and labeled by Paul Ekman (1980). • South Fore of Papua New Guinea • Isolated from Western culture: • “There was an enormous advantage to being with a people who were not camera-shy. They did not know what a camera did so they were not self-conscious about it, and much of their social life was outdoors and easily seen” (Ekman, 1980, p.11). • Ekman (1980) labeled the emotion conveyed by each expression, based on: • Knowledge of the expresser’s situation • Analysis of the facial muscle movements visible in the photograph • Emotions:States: • happiness anger contempt hesitation • sadness fear interest perplexedness • surprise disgust embarrassment relaxation • Offered observers a greater than usual number of emotion labels • Included blended expressions • Ekman (1980) provided a clear prediction about the level of agreement to be expected: • “Since these pictures show universal facial expressions, the message conveyed by each face will usually be quite obvious. In the captions to the plates I have added brief explanations of exactly how these emotions are registered on these faces (or for that matter, any face)” (p. 11). Method • Participants • 50 Boston College undergraduates. • Materials • Facial expressions were shown as still black and white 5” x 7” photographs of 20 spontaneous facial expressions of members of the South Fore of New Guinea from Face of Man (Ekman, 1980). • Selection of Photographs- We selected facial expressions in an effort to include as many different emotions as possible. • Abstract • The current study (N=50) examined recognition from 20 spontaneous expressions from Papua New Guinea photographed, coded, and labeled by Ekman (1980). • For the 16 faces with a single predicted label, average endorsement was 24.2%. • For four faces with two predicted labels (blends), average endorsement was 38.8%. • Spontaneous expressions do not achieve the level of recognition achieved by posed expressions. • Introduction • Can emotions be easily read from facial expressions?(e.g., Ekman, 1980; Tomkins, 1962; Izard, 1971). Endorsement for a Particular Term • Intensity Ratings. We asked whether there was a significant difference between the intensity ratings of Ekman’s predicted label and a comparison label • For 2 faces, Ekman’s term was selected most often • For 8 faces, the comparison label was selected most often • And the remaining 12 faces showed no differences • Consensus Scoring • Endorsement of Modal Responses. Another measure of “recognition” sets aside the predicted label and simply relies on the modal response within this sample. • Modal response endorsement = 42.2% • Chance = 8.3%. Discussion • Low Recognition of discrete emotion from spontaneous facial expression raises questions about past research using posed expressions. • Endorsements were higher than chance, showing that our judges were not random. • Perhaps they were able to assess the positivity of an expression and select emotion labels based on those criteria. • Because recognition of emotion and non-emotion states (perplexed, hesitant, relaxed) did not differ, this suggests that the face may portray information beyond emotion. Percent of Ss Chance 8.3% Spontaneous vs. Posed Expressions Point of Comparison Results Across Facial Expressions with the Same Predicted Emotion Emotion attributions for Ekman’s ‘anger’ face (1 face) Emotion attributions for Ekman’s ‘embarrassment’ face (2 faces) • Which are representative of the facial expressions encountered everyday? Recognition of Emotion and Non-Emotion States • Spontaneous expressions have obtained lower recognition than posed expressions: • Results • Ekman’s Predictions • Endorsement. The most common method for assessing ‘recognition’ is the percent of participants who endorse the predicted label, in this case Ekman’s label. • Single Emotion Mean Endorsement = 24.2% • Random selection = 8.3% • Blends • 38.8% selected one of the two predicted labels • Random selection = 16.7%. • Modal Responses. Another measure of recognition is whether the modal response corresponded to Ekman’s predicted label. • Single Emotions- 5 modal responses matched Ekman’s label (out of 16) • With the 4 blended expressions, the two most frequently chosen labels matched • two predicted labels for one face • one of the predicted labels for two faces • neither predicted labels for one face % Endorsement Procedure • Instructions: • 1. Circle the single best word for that emotion. • 2. Please respond to every emotion word by circling a number. Each number represents the intensity to which the emotion is present in the face, ranging from 0 (none) to 4 (maximum intensity). • None Maximum Intensity • I------------------------------------------I • 1. Happiness 0 1 2 3 4 • 2. Fear 0 1 2 3 4 • 3. Interest 0 1 2 3 4 • 4. Anger 0 1 2 3 4 • 5. Embarrassment 0 1 2 3 4 • 6. Disgust 0 1 2 3 4 • 7. Sadness 0 1 2 3 4 • 8. Contempt 0 1 2 3 4 • 9. Relaxed 0 1 2 3 4 • 10. Surprise 0 1 2 3 4 • 11. Perplexed 0 1 2 3 4 • 12. Hesitant 0 1 2 3 4 • Perhaps there are other things people read into a face, such as • social messages (Fridlund, 1997) • or action tendencies (Frijda & Tscherkassof, 1997). • References • Ekman, P. (1980). The Face of Man. New York, NY: Garland Publishing, Inc. • Fridlund (1997). The new ethology of human facial expressions. In J.M. Russell, & J.M. Fernandez-Dols • (Eds.), The psychology of facial expression (pp.78-102). New York: Cambridge University Press. • Frijda, N. & Tcherkassof, A. (1997). Facial expressions as modes of action readiness. In Russell, J. & • Fernandez-Dols, J. (Eds.), The psychology of facial expression (pp. 103-129). New York: Cambridge • University Press. • Izard, C. (1971). The face of emotion. CT, US: Appleton-Century-Crofts. • Motley, M. & Camden, C. (1988). Facial expression of emotion: A comparison of posed expressions • versus spontaneous expressions in an interpersonal communication setting.Western Journal of • Speech Communication, 52, 1-22. • Russell, J., Lewicka, M., & Niit, T. (1989). A cross-cultural study of a circumplex model of affect. Journal • of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 848-856. • Tomkins, S. (1962). Affect, imagery, consciousness: The positive affects. Oxford, England: Springer. • Wagner, H., MacDonald, C., & Manstead, A. (1986). Communication of individual emotions by • spontaneous facial expressions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 37-743. • Yik, M., Meng, Z., & Russell, J. (1998). Adults’ freely produced emotion labels for babies’ spontaneous • facial expressions. Cognition and Emotion, 12, 723-730.