This is a fun, interactive exercise...choose the eyes and the mouth to 'make' different emotions.
http://198.45.22.27/connectext/psy/ch10/facex.mhtml
This is a fun, interactive exercise...choose the eyes and the mouth to 'make' different emotions.
http://198.45.22.27/connectext/psy/ch10/facex.mhtml
I found this activity a little more difficult than I expected it to be. Many of the eyes, alone, could be interpreted to be multiple emotions; many of the mouths could be other emotions as well. I found it interesting that, once I paired the correct eyes with mouth, it made sense - that both of them together are crucial to accurately interpret a face's emotion.
I found an article that discusses how we transmit and decode facial expressions.
Smith, M.L., Cottrell, G.W., Gosselin, F., & Schyns, P.G. (2005). Transmitting and Decoding Facial Expressions. Psychological Science, 16(3), 184-189.
Smith, et al. (2005) discuss previous research that has determined that there are six basic facial expressions, and those are universally recognized among different cultures (184). In their experiment, they found support for what I had experienced from the activity - for example, that eye and mouth transmissions of fear and surprise are generally similar. The most important result from their study, however, is the idea that the face and facial expressions have evolved to best suit our ability to communicate with each other.
In their study, the independent variables were the different eyes and mouths. The dependent variable was the transmitted facial expression. Seven male and seven female students from a university in Scotland participated. Five male and five female faces were utilized to display the six basic facial expressions, and one neutral expression. Altogether, 70 images were created. The stimuli was randomly shown to the participants, in which they were asked to determine the expression that was being transmitted. Then, a filter was used to only reveal portions of the face, or the face in different ways (e.g. blurry, outlined, granulated, etc.).
The article can be found at: http://mapageweb.umontreal.ca/gosselif/labogo/emotions_pub.pdf.
I decided to place one set of eyes with every mouth to discover the variety of emotions that I could create with the figure. I was surprised to see that by mixing each pair of eyes with each mouth, I could have four outcomes: the same emotion, a similar emotion, a completely new emotion, or a combination that did not normally express an emotion.
I have always been good at unconsciously reading people and their emotions. However, this was the first time I began to understand just how complicated of a process it is to express emotions, and that’s just with the face. If you add the rest of the body language into the equation, the whole thing is exponentially more difficult. The smallest difference can make a huge difference.
I found another website (listed below) that allows the user more control over the facial features, such as the eyebrows, eyelids, the angle of the head, and if you only want to apply the features to one side of the face.
Humans have very expressive faces, and learning to interpret facial expressions is essential to interacting with others. This is absolutely a skill that can only be honed with repetition. Think about it. Most of the day we spend interacting with others. And if we are feeling reclusive, we are probably watching television or movies, so we are still reading people’s faces. So why not make this one of your best skills?
http://www.dotolearn.com/games/facialexpressions/index.htm
When doing this activity I also have difficulty. To me it looked like all the eyes and mouths could make an emotion, but when I saw the "Please try again" sign I was like seriously? Once I matched each of the four emotions together it made better sense to me. I remember doing an activity just like this one when I took Visual Perceptions awhile back. It's amazing how we can misinterpret people's facial expressions.
I found another link to a facial expressions test.
When you get to the site scroll down and clicked on the numbers 1-10 and distinguish which facial expressions is the same as the actual persons face. You'll be surprised at how tricky they can be. I got 1/2 of them wrong. Pay close attention, because the people do make a face for a slit second. That is the key part.
http://www.cio.com/article/facial-expressions-test
This is certainly an interesting activity to take part in when you think you already know what the universal nonverbal cues are for happy, sad, fearful, and angry. Like others before me, I also had a difficult time displaying the correct eyes and mouth for the corresponding facial expressions.
After completing the activity, I moved to the next screen of the website and discovered text reiterating upon the importance of body language. Within this explanation, I came across a study done by Jones and colleagues (1987) suggesting that having the tongue slightly protruding from the mouth is a nonverbal cue worthy of our attention and study.
Researchers found that when a person displays their tongue slightly, others are less likely to interrupt them in the task in which they are doing. An example given was that of a sales clerk with their tongue showing and a clerk with their tongue hidden. The clerk with a hidden tongue was approached more often than the clerk with an exposed tongue. It was suggested that this could be part of the reason many avoid individuals with Down's syndrome as a characteristic sign is an exposed tongue. We determine who people are by taking in verbal and nonverbal cues they exhibit, and then further determine whether or not to approach the individual based on our conclusions.
I have also come across an interesting article on Facial Expression in Adults With Down's Syndrome that was similar to that of the Jones study mentioned earlier. Here, researchers mention that individuals with DS have an unusually large tongue that often protrudes from the mouth more than normal. This has contributed to negative reactions to DS and an unwillingness to approach.
Link to Facial Expression in Adults With Down's Syndrome:
http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=fulltext.printArticle&jcode=abn&vol=105&issue=4&format=html&page=602&language=eng
I also thought that his activity was harder than I thought it would be. I think that sometimes the eye/mouth combinations can make other emotions that weren't even listed in the activity (so when you made the emotion it said 'please try again'). It was still a pretty cool activity over all though.
What I was thinking about the whole time I was reading the comments and engaging in the activity were people that are unable to read facial emotions and non-verbal forms of communiation. Last semester I learned alot about Autism and Aspergers Disorder, both of which consist of impairments in social skills as well as the inability to regognize and read other people's emotions. I think it would be really interesting to see how someone with either of these disorders would score on this activity, or other activities like it. There are many different types of programs that people with these disorders usually get involved in (especially those with Aspergers because it is seen as less severe than Autsim) that attempt to increase their social skills and read nonverbal communacion more accurately. In a way, the therapists that work with these people 'teach' people with Autism and Asperger's how to read other people's emotions.
Here is a link to one program that teaches these skills through a computer program, there is a free demo download but I dont necessarily recommend actually downloading it (it takes a really long time to download) but it is just an example of one type of facial recognition treatment: http://www.ccoder.com/GainingFace/
Yale also provides a great website for additional information on Aspergers and Autism:
http://www.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/autism/asdiagnosis.html