Calder A J, Rowland D, Young A W, Nimmo-Smith I, Keane J, Perrett D I
MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, 15 Chaucer Road, CB2 2EF, Cambridge, UK.
Cognition. 2000 Aug 14;76(2):105-46. doi: 10.1016/s0010-0277(00)00074-3.
The physical differences between facial expressions (e.g. fear) and a reference norm (e.g. a neutral expression) were altered to produce photographic-quality caricatures. In Experiment 1, participants rated caricatures of fear, happiness and sadness for their intensity of these three emotions; a second group of participants rated how 'face-like' the caricatures appeared. With increasing levels of exaggeration the caricatures were rated as more emotionally intense, but less 'face-like'. Experiment 2 demonstrated a similar relationship between emotional intensity and level of caricature for six different facial expressions. Experiments 3 and 4 compared intensity ratings of facial expression caricatures prepared relative to a selection of reference norms - a neutral expression, an average expression, or a different facial expression (e.g. anger caricatured relative to fear). Each norm produced a linear relationship between caricature and rated intensity of emotion; this finding is inconsistent with two-dimensional models of the perceptual representation of facial expression. An exemplar-based multidimensional model is proposed as an alternative account.
