Twenty-two emotions are written on our faces
People’s features express more feelings than scientists thought
By Meghan Rosen
Human faces just got a lot more emotional.
People can broadcast more than three times as many different feelings on their faces as scientists once suspected. For years, scientists have thought that people could convey only happiness, surprise, sadness, anger, fear and disgust.
“I thought it was very odd to have only one positive emotion,” says cognitive scientist Aleix Martinez of Ohio State University in Columbus.
So he and colleagues came up with 16 combined ones, such as “happily disgusted” and “happily surprised.” Then the researchers asked volunteers to imagine situations that would provoke these emotions, such as listening to a gross joke, or getting unexpected good news.