Abstract
How similar are the meanings of facial expressions of emotion and the emotion terms frequently used to label them? In three studies, subjects made similarity judgments and emotion self-report ratings in response to six emotion categories represented in Ekman and Friesen's Pictures of Facial Affect, and their associated labels. Results were analyzed with respect to the constituent facial movements using the Facial Action Coding System, and using consensus analysis, multidimensional scaling, and inferential statistics. Shared interpretation of meaning was found between individuals and the group, with congruence between the meaning in facial expressions, labeling using basic emotion terms, and subjects' reported emotional responses. The data suggest that (1) the general labels used by Ekman and Friesen are appropriate but may not be optimal, (2) certain facial movements contribute more to the perception of emotion than do others, and (3) perception of emotion may be categorical rather than dimensional.
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Preparation of this article was supported in part by National Institute of Mental Health grant MH18931 to Paul Ekman and Robert Levenson for the NIMH Postdoctoral Training Program in Emotion Research. Portions of this work were completed as part of a doctoral dissertation (see references).
I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Louis Narens, William H. Batchelder, Virginia Lee, and Paul Ekman in the completion of this work. I also thank William Irwin for his help with FACS coding, and Shirley Wang and the other UC Irvine Semiotics Laboratory research assistants for their help with data collection. Jerome Kagan, Nancy Etcoff, Kimberly Jameson, and several anonymous reviewers provided helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.
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Alvarado, N. Congruence of meaning between facial expressions of emotion and selected emotion terms. Motiv Emot 20, 33–61 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02251006
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02251006