Do you see what I see? Taking perspective of others using facial images

TL;DR

This study investigates how accurately people perceive facial expressions across different genders and emotions, highlighting the importance of understanding misinterpretation biases in emotion recognition research.

Contribution

It examines the ability of individuals to interpret facial expressions regardless of their own emotions and gender, emphasizing the reliability of using facial images in emotion studies.

Findings

Facial expressions of the six basic emotions are generally reliably perceived.

Misinterpretation biases are minimal when focusing on basic emotions.

Using facial images is valid for research within the six basic emotions.

Abstract

Albeit many HCI / emotion recognition studies use facial expressive images, few scrutinize the accuracies of the people (experimenters and participants) in perceiving the expressions representing the intended emotions. The misinterpretation of the expression will put bias in the data and introduce questions on the validity of the studies. The possibility of misinterpretation of the expressions will be the focus of the experiment conducted in this study. The experiment will evaluate the ability of people in taking the perspective of others in spite of their current emotions and gender, and whether the expressions can be universally perceived. This study find that it is relatively safe to use facial expressive images for research as long as the emotions are exclusively within the six basic emotions.