ABSTRACT
There has been considerable controversy as to the accuracy with which people's emotions can be judged from their facial expressions as shown in photographs. Woodworth (r938) assessed a number of early experiments in which were employed photographs in the main of actors who posed to express a variety of emotions. On the whole, identification of these was variable and frequently incorrect. Nevertheless, Woodworth deduced from data obtained by Feleky (r924) that emotional expressions could in fact be classified into the following six groups, which are usually differentiated from each other, though expressions within the groups might be confused: (I) love, happiness, mirth; (2) surprise; (3) fear, suffering; (4) anger, determination; (5) disgust; (6) contempt. Later, Schlosberg (r94r), using photographs of more natural poses, obtained results which suggested that these groups could be classified along two major dimensions: pleasant - unpleasant, and attention (as in fear and surprise) - rejection (as in contempt and disgust). But although this classification may be interesting from a theoretical point of view, it would not appear at first sight to be particularly apposite to actual perception of emotional states. However, it does suggest that emotional expressions are easier to differentiate if they correspond to the extremes of pleasant - unpleasant, or attention - rejection.
