Scientific American
A survey of six million videos from 144 countries suggests facial expressions are nearly universal
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In the 19th century, French clinician Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne posited that humans universally use their facial muscles to make at least 60 discrete expressions, each reflecting one of 60 specific emotions. Charles Darwin, who greeted that number with some skepticism, was invested in exploring the universality of facial expressions as evidence of humanity’s common evolutionary history. He ended up writing a book about human expressions, leaning heavily toward the idea that at least some were common across all cultures.
Since these early forays in the field, debate has run hot over whether some faces we make are common to all of us and, if so, how many there are. Duchenne settled on 60, whereas beginning in the 1970s, psychologist Paul Ekman famously characterized six (disgust, sadness, happiness, fear, anger, surprise) in a construct th
The 16 facial expressions most common to emotional situations worldwide
Whether at a birthday party in Brazil, a funeral in Kenya or protests in Hong Kong, humans all use variations of the same facial expressions in similar social contexts, such as smiles, frowns, grimaces and scowls, a new UC Berkeley study shows.
The findings, published today, Dec. 16, in the journal
Nature, confirm the universality of human emotional expression across geographic and cultural boundaries at a time when nativism and populism are on the rise around the world.
“This study reveals how remarkably similar people are in different corners of the world in how we express emotion in the face of the most meaningful contexts of our lives,” said study co-lead author Dacher Keltner, a UC Berkeley psychology professor and founding director of the Greater Good Science Center.
Wed, 16 Dec 2020 12:00 UTC
(Click to enlarge) Facial expressions of emotion transcend geography and culture worldwide, new study shows. Credit:Whether at a birthday party in Brazil, a funeral in Kenya or protests in Hong Kong, humans all use variations of the same facial expressions in similar social contexts, such as smiles, frowns, grimaces and scowls, a new study from the University of California, Berkeley, shows.
The findings, published today, Dec. 16, in the journal
Nature, confirm the universality of human emotional expression across geographic and cultural boundaries at a time when nativism and populism are on the rise around the world.
UC Berkeley researchers find people express emotions similarly worldwide
Researchers from UC Berkeley and Google have found that people from different geographic and cultural backgrounds express similar facial expressions in certain social situations. The study gathered data from six million videos that were uploaded to YouTube by individuals from 144 countries.
A study by UC Berkeley and Google researchers found that across various cultures, people express similar facial expressions in specific social situations, such as protests, weddings and funerals.
The research spanned over 144 countries’ geographic and cultural boundaries. These resemblances were shared among 70% of the people in the countries studied, which constitutes 12 regions from around the world, according to the study.
Do facial expressions transcend culture?
Study supports similarities in how we show emotion.
Credit: Chris Whitehead / Getty Images
Humans are emotional beings, with feelings that show in our behaviours and facial expressions. But whether these mean the same thing in different cultures has been hotly debated.
In what researchers say is the first worldwide analysis in naturalistic settings, a new study published in the journal
Nature has found that different social contexts, such as weddings, funerals, humour, art and sports, do indeed elicit universal facial expressions.
“We found that rich nuances in facial behaviour – including subtle expressions we associate with ‘awe’, ‘interest’, ‘triumph’ – are used in similar social situations around the world,” says lead author Alan Cowen from the University of California Berkeley, US.