Facial Expressions and the Ability to Recognize Emotions from the Eyes or Mouth: A Comparison Between Children and Adults

Guarnera, Maria; Hichy, Zira; Cascio, Maura Ignazia; Carrubba, Stefano; Buccheri, Stefania Lucia

doi:10.1080/00221325.2017.1361377

Cited by 19 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 43 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Specifically, the mouth has been consistently found to be both sufficient and necessary to discriminate happiness (Calder and Jansen, 2005;Nusseck et al, 2008;Bombari et al, 2013;Beaudry et al, 2014;Maher et al, 2014). A smiling mouth has been widely considered as a salient and distinctive facial feature in previous studies (Calvo and Nummenmaa, 2016;Guarnera et al, 2017;Wegrzyn et al, 2017;Calvo et al, 2018), a finding that supports the feature-based process of happiness recognition (Beaudry et al, 2014). The eye region, which includes the eyes and eyebrows, has been identified as important, sufficient, and necessary for discriminating sad expressions (Calvo et al, 2006;Calvo and Nummenmaa, 2008;Wegrzyn et al, 2017;Ikeda, 2020), but the eyes and eyebrows are seldom explored separately.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

The Influence of Key Facial Features on Recognition of Emotion in Cartoon Faces

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Cartoon faces are widely used in social media, animation production, and social robots because of their attractive ability to convey different emotional information. Despite their popular applications, the mechanisms of recognizing emotional expressions in cartoon faces are still unclear. Therefore, three experiments were conducted in this study to systematically explore a recognition process for emotional cartoon expressions (happy, sad, and neutral) and to examine the influence of key facial features (mouth, eyes, and eyebrows) on emotion recognition. Across the experiments, three presentation conditions were employed: (1) a full face; (2) individual feature only (with two other features concealed); and (3) one feature concealed with two other features presented. The cartoon face images used in this study were converted from a set of real faces acted by Chinese posers, and the observers were Chinese. The results show that happy cartoon expressions were recognized more accurately than neutral and sad expressions, which was consistent with the happiness recognition advantage revealed in real face studies. Compared with real facial expressions, sad cartoon expressions were perceived as sadder, and happy cartoon expressions were perceived as less happy, regardless of whether full-face or single facial features were viewed. For cartoon faces, the mouth was demonstrated to be a feature that is sufficient and necessary for the recognition of happiness, and the eyebrows were sufficient and necessary for the recognition of sadness. This study helps to clarify the perception mechanism underlying emotion recognition in cartoon faces and sheds some light on directions for future research on intelligent human-computer interactions.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

The Influence of Key Facial Features on Recognition of Emotion in Cartoon Faces

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In general, humans use the mouth more than the eyes to both signal and discriminate facial expressions [ 9 – 11 ]. The recognition patterns of emotions from faces are generally similar among children, adults, and the elderly [ 12 , 13 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Facial masks affect emotion recognition in the general population and individuals with autistic traits

2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Facial expressions, and the ability to recognize these expressions, have evolved in humans to communicate information to one another. Face masks are equipment used in healthcare by health professionals to prevent the transmission of airborne infections. As part of the social distancing efforts related to COVID-19, wearing facial masks has been practiced globally. Such practice might influence affective information communication among humans. Previous research suggests that masks disrupt expression recognition of some emotions (e.g., fear, sadness or neutrality) and lower the confidence in their identification. To extend the previous research, in the current study we tested a larger and more diverse sample of individuals and also investigated the effect of masks on perceived intensity of expressions. Moreover, for the first time in the literature we examined these questions using individuals with autistic traits. Specifically, across three experiments using different populations (college students and general population), and the 10-item Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ-10; lower and higher scorers), we tested the effect of facial masks on facial emotion recognition of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and neutrality. Results showed that the ability to identify all facial expressions decreased when faces were masked, a finding observed across all three studies, contradicting previous research on fear, sad, and neutral expressions. Participants were also less confident in their judgements for all emotions, supporting previous research; and participants perceived emotions as less expressive in the mask condition compared to the unmasked condition, a finding novel to the literature. An additional novel finding was that participants with higher scores on the AQ-10 were less accurate and less confident overall in facial expression recognition, as well as perceiving expressions as less intense. Our findings reveal that wearing face masks decreases facial expression recognition, confidence in expression identification, as well as the perception of intensity for all expressions, affecting high-scoring AQ-10 individuals more than low-scoring individuals.

show abstract

“…Thus, although even newborns are able to produce facial expressions [56], the ability to recognize specific emotions from facial expressions increases with age [57, 58]. Previous studies reported that, among the basic facial expressions, the emotions that are best recognized (from an actor’s full face display) are happiness, anger, and disgust, followed by fear, with sadness being more difficult to recognize [59–61]. More specifically, research has shown that, by 5 years of age, children are as sensitive as adults to displays of happiness, [62], and from 8 to 11 years, they recognize happy, angry, and disgust expressions more easily than those showing fear and sadness [62, 63].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children with facial paralysis due to Moebius syndrome exhibit reduced autonomic modulation during emotion processing

Stefani

Ardizzi

Nicolini

et al. 2019

J Neurodevelop Disord

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background Facial mimicry is crucial in the recognition of others’ emotional state. Thus, the observation of others’ facial expressions activates the same neural representation of that affective state in the observer, along with related autonomic and somatic responses. What happens, therefore, when someone cannot mimic others’ facial expressions? Methods We investigated whether psychophysiological emotional responses to others’ facial expressions were impaired in 13 children (9 years) with Moebius syndrome (MBS), an extremely rare neurological disorder (1/250,000 live births) characterized by congenital facial paralysis. We inspected autonomic responses and vagal regulation through facial cutaneous thermal variations and by the computation of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). These parameters provide measures of emotional arousal and show the autonomic adaptation to others’ social cues. Physiological responses in children with MBS were recorded during dynamic facial expression observation and were compared to those of a control group (16 non-affected children, 9 years). Results There were significant group effects on thermal patterns and RSA, with lower values in children with MBS. We also observed a mild deficit in emotion recognition in these patients. Conclusion Results support “embodied” theory, whereby the congenital inability to produce facial expressions induces alterations in the processing of facial expression of emotions. Such alterations may constitute a risk for emotion dysregulation.

show abstract

Facial Expressions and the Ability to Recognize Emotions from the Eyes or Mouth: A Comparison Between Children and Adults

Cited by 19 publications

References 43 publications

The Influence of Key Facial Features on Recognition of Emotion in Cartoon Faces

The Influence of Key Facial Features on Recognition of Emotion in Cartoon Faces

Facial masks affect emotion recognition in the general population and individuals with autistic traits

Children with facial paralysis due to Moebius syndrome exhibit reduced autonomic modulation during emotion processing

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About