Abstract
This article reports on three experiments on the controversial topic of “context effects” in the judgment of emotion from the face. In Experiment 1 (N=169) subjects were shown either a happy, sad, or angry anchor face as context followed by a target slide of a “neutral” face. In Experiment 2 (N=119) subjects were shown an anchor of a happy or angry face as context and a sad face as target. In Experiment 3 (N=180) subjects were shown an anchor of a happy, sad, or surprised face as context and an angry face as target. All experiments used facial expressions from Ekman and Friesen'sPictures of Facial Affect (1976). Dependent measures included intensity ratings of pleasure and arousal dimensions (Mehrabian & Russell, 1974); a judgment of the intensity of six specific emotions expressed (happy, sad, angry, afraid, disgusted, and interested); and categorical judgments of emotions. Significant context effects were observed for the neutral target and, with smaller effects, for the angry and sad targets on dimensional and intensity ratings. The magnitude of the context effect depended on both the target and anchor facial expressions. Greater categorical agreement of emotion was obtained for the target when another face was provided as a context than when the target face was shown alone. These results provide an independent replication and extension of recent research (Russell, 1991; Russell & Fehr, 1987) on the relativity of facial affect judgment.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Cook, T. D., & Campbell, D. T. (1979).Quasi-experimentation. Chicago: Rand McNally.
Cramer, E., & Nicewander, W. A. (1979). Some symmetric, invariant measures of multivariate association.Psychometrika, 44, 43–54.
Darwin, C. (1965).The expression of emotions in man and animals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1872).
Ekman, P. (1972). Universals and cultural differences in facial expressions of emotion. In J. Cole (Ed.),Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (Vol. 19). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Ekman, P. (1994). Strong evidence for universals in facial expressions: A reply to Russell's mistaken critique.Psychological Bulletin, 115, 268–288.
Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1976).Pictures of facial affect. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1986). A new pan-cultural facial expression of emotion.Motivation and Emotion, 12, 17–22.
Ekman, P., Friesen, W. V., & Ellsworth, P. (1982). What are the relative contributions of facial behavior and contextual information to the judgment of emotion? In P. Ekman (Ed.), Emotion in the human face (2nd ed.; (pp. 111–127). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Ekman, P., Friesen, W. V., O'Sullivan, M., Chan, A., Diacoyanni-Tarlatzis, I., Heider, K., Krause, R., LeCompte, W. A., Pitcairn, T., Ricci-Bitti, P. E., Scherer, K., & Tomita, M. (1987). Universals and cultural differences in the judgments of facial expressions of emotion.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 712–717.
Ekman, P., & O'Sullivan, M. (1988). The role of context in interpreting facial expression: Comment on Russell & Fehr (1987).Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 117, 86–88.
Ekman, P., O'Sullivan, M., & Matsumoto, D. (1991). Confusions about context in the judgment of facial expression: A reply to “the contempt expression and the relativity thesis.”Motivation and Emotion, 15, 169–176.
Fernandez-Dols, J. M., Sierra, B., & Ruiz-Belda, M. A. (1993). On the clarity of expressive and contextual information in the recognition of emotions: A methodological critique.European Journal of Social Psychology, 23, 195–202.
Fernandez-Dols, J. M., Wallbott, H. G., & Sanchez, F. (1991). Emotion category accessibility and the decoding of emotion from facial expression and context.Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 15, 107–123.
Fernberger, S. W. (1928). False suggestion and the Piderit model.American Journal of Psychology, 40, 562–568.
Frijda, N. H. (1958). Facial expression and situational cues.Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 57, 149–154.
Goldberg, H. D. (1951). The role of “cutting” in the perception of motion pictures.Journal of Applied Psychology, 35, 70–71.
Goodenough, F. L., & Tinker, M. A. (1931). The relative potency of facial expression and verbal description of stimulus in the judgment of emotion.Journal of Comparative Psychology, 12, 365–370.
Izard, C. E. (1971).The face of emotion. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Izard, C. E. (1977).Human emotions. New York: Plenum Press.
Izard, C. E. (1992). Basic emotions, relations among emotions, and emotion-cognition relations.Psychological Review, 99, 561–565.
Izard, C. E. (1994). Innate and universal facial expressions: Evidence from developmental and cross-cultural research.Psychological Bulletin, 115, 288–299.
Manis, M. (1967). Context effects in communication.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 5, 326–334.
Mehrabian, A., & Russell, A. J. (1974).An approach to environmental psychology, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Munn, N. L. (1940). The effect of knowledge of the situation upon judgment of emotion from facial expressions.Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 35, 324–338.
Russell, J. A. (1979). Affect space is bipolar,Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 345–356.
Russell, J. A. (1991). The contempt expression and the relativity thesis.Motivation and Emotion, 15, 149–176.
Russell, J. A. (1994). Is there universal recognition of emotion from facial expression: A review of the cross-cultural studies.Psychological Bulletin, 115, 102–141.
Russell, J. A., & Bullock, M. (1986). Fuzzy concepts and the perception of emotion in facial expressions.Social Cognition, 4, 309–341.
Russell, J. A., & Fehr, B. (1987). Relativity in the perception of emotion in facial expressions.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 116, 223–237.
Russell, J. A., & Fehr, B. (1988). Reply to Ekman and O'Sullivan.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 117, 89–90.
Tagiuri, R. (1968). Person perception. In G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.),The handbook of social psychology Vol. 3, (pp. 395–449). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Tanaka-Matsumi, J., Seiden, F., Xydas, M., & Lam, K. (1994, July).Method factors in judgment studies of facial expressions: Implications for the universality hypothesis. Paper presented at the Congress of International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology, Pamplona, Spain.
Thayer, S. (1980a). The effect of expression sequence and expressor identity on judgments of the intensity of facial expression.Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 5, 71–79.
Thayer, S. (1980b). The effect of facial expression sequence upon judgment of emotion.Journal of Social Psychology, 111, 305–306.
Wallbott, H. G. (1988a). In and out of context: Influences of facial expression and context information on emotion attributions.British Journal of Social Psychology, 27, 357–369.
Wallbott, H. G. (1988b). Faces in context: The relative importance of facial expression and context information in determining emotion attributions. In K. R. Scherer (Ed.),Facets of emotion. Recent research (pp. 139–160). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Watson, S. G. (1972). Judgment of emotion from facial and contextual cue combinations.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24, 334–342.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This research was supported by the Faculty Development Grant from Hofstra University to the first author.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Tanaka-Matsumi, J., Attivissimo, D., Nelson, S. et al. Context effects on the judgment of basic emotions in the face. Motiv Emot 19, 139–155 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02250567
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02250567