What does your face say?
How many different emotions do you think you can communicate to people with your face? Do you have the same facial expressions as people from different cultures?
New research suggests that there are only four basic facial expressions of emotion.However, how these expressions are understood might depend on where you are from.
Research by scientists from the University of Glasgow has challenged the traditional view of how the face expresses emotions. Until now, it was widely believed that six basic emotions — happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and
disgust (厌恶), were expressed and recognized across different cultures. However, the University of Glasgow'swork now suggests that the human face only has four basic expressions of emotion. This is because some pairs of emotions are
impossible to distinguish, especially when they are first expressing on the face. Fear and surprise, for example,both share wide-open eyes. The facial expressions for anger and disgust also look the same.
So if our faces are only able to express four basic emotions, how do we communicate more complex (复杂的) feelings? The study found that the way expressions are explained is different in different cultures. Lead researcher Dr Rachael Jack was studying this because "facial expressions were considered to be general", she explains. However, while looking at how people from the East and West look at different parts of the face during facial expression recognition, they found that although there are some common characteristics across cultures, the six basic facial expressions of
emotion are not recognized by everyone.
"We said we don't know what a disgust face looks like in China, so the best way togo about that is to make all combinations (组合) of facial movements and show to Chinese researchers and ask them to choose the ones they think are disgust faces."
With the software they developed, they discovered that in the early stages of signaling emotion, fear and surprise, and anger and disgust, were often confused. Jack explains that these facial expressions have developed both from biology and social evolution(进化).
What interests people about the cross-cultural aspect of the research? "This work leads to understanding which emotions we share, realizing our differences and calling attention to our multicultural experiences." This research could advise new ways of social communication that improve cross-cultural interactions.
