Emotion Detectors

A smile carries across language barriers – but might our emotional expressions form a universal language? These sculptures, crafted by ancient American civilisations cut off from ‘western’ cultures, may hold clues. They evoke emotional situations – holding a baby, fighting, or torture – yet human volunteers were asked to identify each statue’s emotional state from its face alone. Their successful spots suggest a set of universal facial expressions which transcend time and cultural boundaries: elation and sadness as well as pain, anger and determination. Elsewhere, scientists studying links between our how we express ourselves and mental well-being find the size of one’s 'positive' or 'negative' emotional vocabulary – the emotive words we use to describe the world – may reflect an underlying, and possibly unnoticed, mood. Perhaps for centuries, clues to someone’s mental state remain a combination of recognising physical expressions and those in language – how someone uses their emotive words.

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

Writer

A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

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• Image from universal facial expressions study by A. Cowen and D. Keltner, Dept of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
• Study on emotional vocabulary by V. Vine, R. L. Boyd & J.W. Pennebaker in Nature Communications, Sept 2020
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Image published in the study by A. Cowen and D. Keltner, Science Advances, August 2020