The DOI matches its Crossref record; 444 of the 444 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Emotional Expressions Reconsidered: Challenges to Inferring Emotion From Human Facial Movements
Open accessAbstract
It is commonly assumed that a person’s emotional state can be readily inferred from his or her facial movements, typically called emotional expressions or facial expressions . This assumption influences legal judgments, policy decisions, national security protocols, and educational practices; guides the diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric illness, as well as the development of commercial applications; and pervades everyday social interactions as well as research in other scientific fields such as artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and computer vision. In this article, we survey examples of this widespread assumption, which we refer to as the common view , and we then examine the scientific evidence that tests this view, focusing on the six most popular emotion categories used by consumers of emotion research: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. The available scientific evidence suggests that people do sometimes smile when happy, frown when sad, scowl when angry, and so on, as proposed by the common view, more than what would be expected by chance. Yet how people communicate anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise varies substantially across cultures, situations, and even across people within a single situation. Furthermore, similar configurations of facial movements variably express instances of more than one emotion category. In fact, a given configuration of facial movements, such as a scowl, often communicates something other than an emotional state. Scientists agree that facial movements convey a range of information and are important for social communication, emotional or otherwise. But our review suggests an urgent need for research that examines how people actually move their faces to express emotions and other social information in the variety of contexts that make up everyday life, as well as careful study of the mechanisms by which people perceive instances of emotion in one another. We make specific research recommendations that will yield a more valid picture of how people move their faces to express emotions and how they infer emotional meaning from facial movements in situations of everyday life. This research is crucial to provide consumers of emotion research with the translational information they require.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“Multimodal recognition extends inference to speech prosody, facial movement and physiology, but facial expressions are context-sensitive social cues rather than emotion readouts [29]”
From Caring Without Feeling: Affective Dynamics as the Control Layer of Human-AI Agent Collaboration (2026) · cites this paper as [29]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“However, our findings allow no conclusions about whether the smiles were “genuine” as expressions of felt joy (Feldman Barrett et al., 2019).”
From Existential threat and responses to emotional displays of ingroup and outgroup members (2023) · cites this paper as Feldman Barrett et al., 2019
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“The notion that discrete emotion categories can be reliably identified by specific behavioural patterns and/or physiological features has been seriously called into doubt by the marked variability within instances of the same category as well as similarities across categories.”
From A new science of emotion: implications for functional neurological disorder (2022) · cites this paper as [57]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Kuhn, T. S., & Schlegel, R. (1963) · Physics Today · doi:10.1063/1.3050879 · Cited by 35,538
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.185.4157.1124 · Cited by 28,810
Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1975) · Utility, Probability, and Human Decision Making · doi:10.1007/978-94-010-1834-0_8 · Cited by 22,650
The weirdest people in the world?
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x0999152x · Cited by 12,641
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
Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes.
Nisbett, R. E., & Wilson, T. D. (1977) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.84.3.231 · Cited by 11,317
An argument for basic emotions
Ekman, P. (1992) · Cognition and Emotion · doi:10.1080/02699939208411068 · Cited by 9,646
THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS
McGuire, J. E. (1963) · Philosophical Books · doi:10.1111/j.1468-0149.1963.tb00813.x · Cited by 8,547
Tversky, A. (1977) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.84.4.327 · Cited by 7,414
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
Research works printed but not linked: 29
- 10.1037/0022-3514.37.11.2049 · DOI
- Baum S. (Creator) & Grazer B. (Producer). (2009, January 21). Lie to me [Television series]. Los Angeles, CA: Fox.
- Cacioppo J. T., Berntson G. G., Larsen J. H., Poehlmann K. M., Ito T. A. (2000). The psychophysiology of emotion. In Lewis R., Haviland-Jones J. M. (Eds.), The handbook of emotions (2nd ed., pp. 173–191). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
- Camras L. A., Fatani S. S., Fraumeni B. R., Shuster M. M. (2016). The development of facial expressions. In Barrett L. F., Lewis M., Haviland-Jones J. M. (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (4th ed., pp. 255–271). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
- Cleese J. (Writer), Erskine J., Stewart D. (Directors). (2001, March 7). The human face [Television series]. London, England: BBC.
- Clore G. L., Ortony A. (2008). Appraisal theories: How cognition shapes affect into emotion. In Lewis M., Haviland-Jones J. M., Barrett L. F. (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (3rd ed., pp. 628–642). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
- Docter P., Del Carmen R. (Directors), LeFauve M., Cooley J. (Writers), & Lasseter J. (Producer). (2015). Inside out [Motion picture]. Emeryville, CA: Pixar.
- Dondi M., Gervasi M. T., Valente A., Vacca T., Bogana G., De Bellis I., . . . Oster H. (2012). Spontaneous facial expressions of distress in fetuses. In De Sousa C., Oliveira A. M.(Eds.), Proceedings of the 14th European Conference on Facial Expression: New Challenges for Research (pp. 16–18). Coimbra, Portugal: University of Coimbra.
- Duran J. I., Reisenzein R., Fernández-Dols J.-M. (2017). Coherence between emotions and facial expressions: A research synthesis. In Fernández-Dols J.-M., Russell J. A. (Eds.), The science of facial expression (pp. 107–129). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
- Eibl-Eibesfeldt I. (1989). Human ethology (Wiessner-Larsen P., Heunemann A., Trans.). New York, NY: Aldine deGruyter.
- 10.1037/0033-2909.115.2.268 · DOI · Paper page
- Ekman P., Friesen W. V. (1978). Facial Action Coding System: A technique for the measurement of facial movement. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
- Ekman P., Friesen W. V., Hager J. C. (2002). Facial Action Coding System: The manual On CD ROM. Salt Lake City, UT: The Human Face.
- Feng D., Jeong D., Krämer N., Miller L., Marsella S. (2017). “Is it just me?” Evaluating attribution of negative feedback as a function of virtual instructor’s gender and proxemics. In Proceedings of AAMAS ‘16 International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (pp. 810–818). Richland, SC: International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems.
- Granchrow J. R., Steiner J. E., Daher M. (1983). Neonatal facial expressions in response to different qualities and intensities of gustatory stimulation. Infant Behavior & Development, 6, 153–157.
- Izard C. E. (1971). The face of emotion. East Norwalk, CT: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
- Keltner D., Cordaro D. T. (2017). Understanding multimodal emotional expressions: Recent advances in Basic Emotion Theory. In Fernández-Dols J.-M., Russell J. A. (Eds.), The science of facial expression (pp. 57–75). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
- Lindquist K. A., Barrett L. F. (2008). Emotional complexity. In Lewis M., Haviland-Jones J. M., Barrett L. F. (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (3rd ed., pp. 513–530). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
- Marsella S., Gratch J. (2016). Computational models of emotion as psychological tools. In Barrett L. F., Lewis M., Haviland-Jones J. (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (4th ed., pp 113–132). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
- Matsumoto D., Keltner D., Shiota M., O’Sullivan M., Frank M. (2008). Facial expressions of emotions. In Lewis M., Haviland-Jones J. M., Barrett L. F. (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (3rd ed., pp. 211–234). New York, NY: Macmillan.
- Oster H. (2005). The repertoire of infant facial expressions: An ontogenetic perspective. In Nadel J., Muir D. (Eds.), Emotional development: Recent research advances (pp. 261–292). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
- Pliskin A. (Associate Producer). (2015 January 15). Episode 4515 [Television series episode]. In Sesame street. New York New York: Sesame Workshop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y28GH2GoIyc
- 10.31234/osf.io/7vm5w · DOI
- Smith T. W. (2016). The book of human emotion. New York, NY: Little, Brown.
- Tinbergen N. (1953). The herring gull’s world. London, England: Collins.
- Valentine E. (Writer) & Lehmann B. (Producer). (2015 January 13). Episode 4517 [Television series episode]. In Sesame street. New York NY: Sesame Workshop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxfJicfyCdg
- Walker-Andrews A. S., Dickson L. R. (1997). Infants’ understanding of affect. In Hala S. (Ed.), Studies in developmental psychology: The development of social cognition (pp. 161–186). Hove, England: Psychology Press.
- 10.1037/0022-3514.78.1.105 · DOI
- Yin Y. Nabian M. Ostadabbas S. Fan M. Chou C. Gendron M. (2018). Facial expression and peripheral physiology fusion to decode individualized affective experiences. ArXive.org. Retrieved from https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.07392v1 · arXiv
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Sustainable AI: AI for sustainability and the sustainability of AI
van Wynsberghe, A. (2021) · AI and Ethics · doi:10.1007/s43681-021-00043-6 · Cited by 939
Veale, M., & Zuiderveen Borgesius, F. (2021) · Computer Law Review International · doi:10.9785/cri-2021-220402 · Cited by 805
Towards a standard for identifying and managing bias in artificial intelligence
Schwartz, R., Vassilev, A., Greene, K., Perine, L., Burt, A., & Hall, P. (2022) · doi:10.6028/nist.sp.1270 · Cited by 548
“The basis for drawing conclusions about emotional state from facial characteristics ranges from unscientific and debunked theories to emerging experimental studies [177], presenting concerning challenges to AI systems that claim to make such judgements.”
BackgroundEmotion words, emotion concepts, and emotional development in children: A constructionist hypothesis
Hoemann, K., Xu, F., & Barrett, L. F. (2019) · Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1037/dev0000686 · Cited by 354
Self-citationArtificial intelligence and the future of psychiatry: Insights from a global physician survey
Doraiswamy, P. M., Blease, C., & Bodner, K. (2020) · Artificial Intelligence in Medicine · doi:10.1016/j.artmed.2019.101753 · Cited by 253
Metadata
- Authors
- Barrett, L. F., Adolphs, R., Marsella, S., Martinez, A. M., & Pollak, S. D.
- Affiliations
- Northeastern University (US)
- California Institute of Technology (US)
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Center for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, The Ohio State University
- University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
- Corresponding author
- Barrett, Lisa Feldman
- Venue
- Psychological Science in the Public Interest
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2019-07
- Volume
- 20
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1-68
- ISSN
- 1529-1006 (ISSN-L)
- 2160-0031
- PMC
- PMC6640856
- OpenAlex
- W2912483755
- Semantic Scholar
- c489b6787c5af8aca97f4761343a66f3f189b35d
- Cited by
- 1,748
- References
- 444
- Citations by year
- 2026: 238 · 2025: 266 · 2024: 230 · 2023: 302 · 2022: 269 · 2021: 227 · 2020: 186 · 2019: 26
- FWCI
- 102.82
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- correction (2019-11-15)
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Psychological Science in the Public Interest (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- ENLIGHTEN (Jurnal Bimbingan dan Konseling Islam) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- CaltechAUTHORS (California Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH113234, P50MH094258, R01MH109464, R01MH061285)
- National Eye Institute (R01EY020834)
- National Cancer Institute (U01CA193632)
- National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (R01DC014498)
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (U54HD090256)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Emotion and Mood Recognition
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Keywords
- facial expressions, emotion recognition, facial motion, emotion categories, mixed emotions, social communication, emotion perception, anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise
- MeSH terms
- Facial Recognition, Emotions, Facial Expression, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Judgment, Male, Movement, Psychomotor Performance
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
