Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Comment
. 2019 Apr 9;116(15):7169-7171.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1902661116. Epub 2019 Mar 21.

Context may reveal how you feel

Aleix M Martinez  1   2
Affiliations
Comment

Context may reveal how you feel

Aleix M Martinez. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .
No abstract available

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest statement: The author and The Ohio State University hold several patents on algorithms for the automatic recognition of facial expressions of emotion.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
When asked to identify the emotions shown in these images, most people agree that the left image expresses sadness, while the right image is a clear display of anger. If asked whether these expressions communicate positive or negative valence, most people agree that both correspond to a negative expression. The problem with these assessments is that context is not observable, which may lead to incorrect interpretations. Images courtesy of (Left) Imgflip and (Right) Getty Images/Michael Steele.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Adding context to the facial expressions previously seen in Fig. 1 radically changes our interpretation of the emotion being experienced by a person. (A and B) In these two images, most observers agree that the people shown are experiencing a joyful event (i.e., positive valence). (C and D) When the face and body are blurred out, inference of valence and arousal is still possible. Images courtesy of (Upper Left, Lower Left, and Lower Right) Imgflip and (Upper Right) Getty Images/Michael Steele.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

  • Tracking the affective state of unseen persons.
    Chen Z, Whitney D. Chen Z, et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019 Apr 9;116(15):7559-7564. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1812250116. Epub 2019 Feb 27. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019. PMID: 30814221 Free PMC article.

References

    1. Phillips PJ, et al. Face recognition accuracy of forensic examiners, superrecognizers, and face recognition algorithms. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2018;115:6171–6176. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Barrett LF, Adolphs R, Marsella S, Martinez AM, Pollak S. Emotional expressions reconsidered: Challenges to inferring emotion from human facial movements. Psychol Sci Public Interest. in press. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Chen Z, Whitney D. Tracking the affective state of unseen persons. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2019;116:7559–7564. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Duchenne de Boulogne G-B. The Mechanism of Human Facial Expression. Cambridge Univ Press; New York: 1990.
    1. Darwin C. The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Penguin Classics; London: 2009.

LinkOut - more resources