Whether at a birthday party in Brazil, a funeral at Kenya or protests In Hong Kong, humans all use variations of the exact same facial expressions in similar social contexts, such as smiles, frowns, grimaces and scowls, a new study in the University of California, Berkeley, reveals.
The findings, released in the journal Nature, verify the universality of human emotional expression across geographical and cultural boundaries at a time when nativism and populism are on the increase around the world.
“This study reveals how remarkably similar people are in different corners of the world in how we express emotion in the face of the most meaningful contexts of our lives,” said study co-lead author Dacher Keltner, a UC Berkeley psychology professor.
Researchers at UC Berkeley and Google used machine-learning technology known as a “deep neural network” to examine facial expressions in some 6 million video clips uploaded to YouTube from people in 144 countries spanning North, Central and South America, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
“This is the first worldwide analysis of how facial expressions are used in everyday life, and it shows us that universal human emotional expressions are a lot richer and more complex than many scientists previously assumed,” said study lead author Alan Cowen, a researcher at both UC Berkeley and Google who helped develop the deep neural network algorithm and led the study.
Cowen made an online interactive map that shows how the algorithm monitors variations of expressions that are associated with 16 emotions.
In addition to boosting cross-cultural empathy, possible applications include helping individuals who have trouble reading emotions, like children and adults with autism, to recognize the faces people commonly make to communicate certain feelings.
The typical human face has 43 distinct muscles that can be used around the eyes, mouth, nose, jaw, chin and brow to earn thousands of distinct expressions.
First, researchers used Cowen’s machine-learning algorithm to log facial expressions shown in 6 million video clips of interactions and events worldwide, such as watching fireworks, dance joyously or consoling a child.
They used the algorithm to monitor instances of 16 facial expressions One tends to associate with entertainment, anger, awe, concentration, confusion, contempt, contentment, desire, disappointment, doubt, elation, interest, pain, sadness, surprise and triumph.
Next, they connected the facial expressions with the contexts and situations in which they were produced across different world regions and discovered noteworthy similarities in how individuals across geographic and cultural boundaries utilize facial expressions in different social contexts.
“We found that rich nuances in facial behavior — including subtle expressions we associate with awe, pain, triumph, and 13 other feelings — are used in similar social situations around the world,” Cowen said.
For example, Cowen noted, in the video clips, individuals around the world tended to gaze in awe during fireworks displays, show contentment at weddings, furrow their brows in concentration when performing martial arts, reveal doubt at protests, pain when lifting weights and triumph in rock concerts and aggressive sporting events.
The results showed that individuals from different cultures reveal about 70% of the facial expressions used in response to distinct social and emotional situations.
“This supports Darwin’s theory that expressing emotion in our faces is universal among humans,” Keltner said. “The physical display of our emotions may define who we are as a species, enhancing our communication and cooperation skills and ensuring our survival.”
Related Journal Article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-77301-w