The DOI matches its Crossref record; 168 of the 168 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Is there universal recognition of emotion from facial expression? A review of the cross-cultural studies.
Abstract
Emotions are universally recognized from facial expressions--or so it has been claimed. To support that claim, research has been carried out in various modern cultures and in cultures relatively isolated from Western influence. A review of the methods used in that research raises questions of its ecological, convergent, and internal validity. Forced-choice response format, within-subject design, preselected photographs of posed facial expressions, and other features of method are each problematic. When they are altered, less supportive or nonsupportive results occur. When they are combined, these method factors may help to shape the results. Facial expressions and emotion labels are probably associated, but the association may vary with culture and is loose enough to be consistent with various alternative accounts, 8 of which are discussed.
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“Even critics of strong evolutionary accounts [31], [32] find that recognition of FEs of emotion are universally above chance and in many cases quite higher.”
From Survey on RGB, 3D, Thermal, and Multimodal Approaches for Facial Expression Recognition: History, Trends, and Affect-Related Applications (2016) · cites this paper as [31]
In the citing paper
“Recently, the problem of automatic face detection in an arbitrary scene has drawn great attention (e.g., see [74], [83], [85]).”
From Automatic analysis of facial expressions: the state of the art (2000) · cites this paper as [83]
Citations
Cites
Russell, J. A. (1980) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/h0077714 · Cited by 16,334
Self-citationThe Handbook of Social Psychology
Gravatt, A. E., Lindzey, G. E., & Aronson, F. (1969) · The Family Coordinator · doi:10.2307/582242 · Cited by 12,518
The expression of the emotions in man and animals.
Darwin, C. D. (1872) · J. Murray eBooks · doi:10.1037/10001-000 · Cited by 12,120
An argument for basic emotions
Ekman, P. (1992) · Cognition and Emotion · doi:10.1080/02699939208411068 · Cited by 9,646
Constants across cultures in the face and emotion.
Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1971) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/h0030377 · Cited by 5,509
Ekman, P. (1976) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 4,345
Ekman, P. (1993) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037/0003-066x.48.4.384 · Cited by 3,441
Parducci, A., & Helson, H. (1965) · The American Journal of Psychology · doi:10.2307/1421107 · Cited by 2,493
Ekman, P. (1992) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.99.3.550 · Cited by 2,376
Universals and cultural differences in facial expressions of emotion.
Ekman, P. (1972) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 2,273
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Core affect and the psychological construction of emotion.
Russell, J. A. (2003) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.110.1.145 · Cited by 6,113
Self-citationThe NimStim set of facial expressions: Judgments from untrained research participants.
Tottenham, N., Tanaka, J. W., Leon, A. C., McCarry, T., Nurse, M., Hare, T. A., Marcus, D. J., Westerlund, A., Casey, B., & Nelson, C. (2009) · Psychiatry Research · doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2008.05.006 · Cited by 3,454
“This “quantitative rating” (Russell, 1994) approach is a sensitive measure to capture subtle combinations of emotions within a face.”
InfluentialGross, J. J. (1998) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037//0022-3514.74.1.224 · Cited by 4,671
CROWDSOURCING A WORD–EMOTION ASSOCIATION LEXICON
Mohammad, S. M., & Turney, P. D. (2012) · Computational Intelligence · doi:10.1111/j.1467-8640.2012.00460.x · Cited by 2,901
“However, other studies argue that there may be some universalities, but language and culture play an important role in shaping our emotions and also in how they manifest themselves in facial expression (Elfenbein and Ambady 1994; Russell 1994).”
BackgroundInfluentialEmotion recognition in human-computer interaction
Cowie, R., Douglas-Cowie, E., Tsapatsoulis, N., Votsis, G., Kollias, S., Fellenz, W., & Taylor, J. G. (2001) · IEEE Signal Processing Magazine · doi:10.1109/79.911197 · Cited by 2,603
Metadata
- Authors
- Russell, J. A.
- Affiliations
- University of British Columbia (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Russell, James A.
- ORCID
- Russell, James A.
- Venue
- Psychological Bulletin
- Published
- 1994
- Volume
- 115
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 102-141
- ISSN
- 0033-2909 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1455
- OpenAlex
- W1975238145
- Cited by
- 1,640
- References
- 168
- Citations by year
- 2026: 39 · 2025: 49 · 2024: 58 · 2023: 73 · 2022: 76 · 2021: 77 · 2020: 65 · 2019: 107 · 2018: 80 · 2017: 78 · 2016: 82 · 2015: 72 · 2014: 67 · 2013: 77 · 2012: 66
- FWCI
- 12.66
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Psychological Bulletin (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Cultural Differences and Values
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Emotion and Mood Recognition
- Keywords
- facial expressions, emotion recognition, universal emotions, cross-cultural comparison, within-subjects design, ecological validity, convergent validity, internal validity, emotion labels, cultural variation in emotion
- MeSH terms
- Cross-Cultural Comparison, Discrimination, Psychological, Emotions, Facial Expression, Humans, Judgment, Research Design, Visual Perception
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