Perceptions of emotion from facial expressions are not culturally universal: Evidence from a remote culture.

Abstract

It is widely believed that certain emotions are universally recognized in facial expressions. Recent evidence indicates that Western perceptions (e.g., scowls as anger) depend on cues to US emotion concepts embedded in experiments. Since such cues are standard feature in methods used in cross-cultural experiments, we hypothesized that evidence of universality depends on this conceptual context. In our study, participants from the US and the Himba ethnic group sorted images of posed facial expressions into piles by emotion type. Without cues to emotion concepts, Himba participants did not show the presumed “universal” pattern, whereas US participants produced a pattern with presumed universal features. With cues to emotion concepts, participants in both cultures produced sorts that were closer to the presumed “universal” pattern, although substantial cultural variation persisted. Our findings indicate that perceptions of emotion are not universal, but depend on cultural and conceptual contexts.

Perceptual and affective mechanisms in facial expression recognition: An integrative review

“…Yet, in the absence of such verbal and conceptual constraints, viewers could actually perceive an emotion not included in the list, or even various emotions for the same facial expression. In contrast with this approach, Kayyal and Russell (2013) and Gendron et al (2014) used open response formats, with a wide list of feeling labels beyond the six basic emotion words or simply no cue words (free responding). In such conditions, viewers perceived multiple emotions in the same face.…”

The dot-probe task to measure emotional attention: A suitable measure in comparative studies?

“…These differences can be seen as Bemotional dialects,^since cultural groups who live in proximity to each other are faster to recognize each other's facial expressions than are more distant groups (for a review, see Elfenbein, 2013). However, the universality of emotional expressions is questioned by others (Crivelli, Russell, Jarillo, & Fernández-Dols, 2016;Gendron, Roberson, van der Vyver, & Barrett, 2014). A recent study indicated that adolescents of a tribe in visual isolation from the Western world interpreted a gasping face (by Western people seen as conveying fear) as conveying anger and threat (Crivelli et al, 2016).…”

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“…There is a commonly used set of about six “basic” emotions (happiness, surprise, fear, anger, disgust and sadness), which are the set that psychologists like Paul Ekman have claimed are recognized universally across cultures (Ekman, 1994). But there is also good emerging evidence that in fact emotions are not categorized similarly across all cultures at all (from either face or voice; Gendron, Roberson, van der Vyver, & Barrett, 2014a; Gendron, Roberson, van der Vyver, & Barrett, 2014b) making it unclear what should be the “ground truth” for how to divide up the categories. Even if there were consensus on the categories to include, issues remain with the common practice of using prototypic, exaggerated facial expressions to represent them.…”