THE INTENSITY OF EMOTIONAL FACIAL EXPRESSIONS AND DECODING ACCURACY

The influence of the physical intensity of emotional facial expression s on perceived intensity and emotion category decoding accuracy was as sessed for expressions of anger, disgust, sadness, and happiness. The facial expressions of two men and two women posing each of the four em otions were used as stimuli. Six different levels of intensity of expr ession were created for each pose using a graphics morphing program. T welve men and 12 women rated each of the 96 stimuli for perceived inte nsity of the underlying emotion and for the qualitative nature of the emotion expressed. The results revealed that perceived intensity varie d linearly with the manipulated physical intensity of the expression. Emotion category decoding accuracy varied largely linearly with the ma nipulated physical intensity of the expression for expressions of ange r, disgust, and sadness. For the happiness expressions only, the findi ngs were consistent with a categorical judgment process. Sex of encode r produced significant effects for both dependent measures. These effe cts remained even after possible gender differences in encoding were c ontrolled for, suggesting a perceptual bias on the part of the decoder s.