Facial expressions as performances in mime.

That facial expressions are universal emotion signals has been supported by observers agreeing on the emotion mimed by actors. We show that actors can mime a diverse range of states: emotions, cognitions, physical states, and actions. English, Hindi, and Malayalam speakers (N = 1200) viewed 25 video clips and indicated the state conveyed.

On the limits of the relation of disgust to judgments of immorality.

Two correlational studies (ns = 400; 90) examined the association of judgments of immorality and disgust (hypothesized in much current research and theory). Across 40 scenarios in Study 1, immorality was positively correlated with negative emotions, especially anger. With anger partialed, disgust was significantly, but weakly, correlated with immorality, r(38) = 0.

The development of emotion concepts: a story superiority effect in older children and adolescents.

Contrary to traditional assumptions, young children are more likely to correctly label someone's emotion from a story that describes the causes and consequences of the emotion than from the person's facial expression. This story superiority effect was examined in a sample of older children and adolescents (N=90, 8-20 years) for the emotions of fear, disgust, shame, embarrassment, and pride. Participants freely labeled the emotion they inferred from a story describing a cause and consequence of each emotion and, separately, from the corresponding facial expression.

What emotion does the "facial expression of disgust" express?

The emotion attributed to the prototypical "facial expression of disgust" (a nose scrunch) depended on what facial expressions preceded it. In two studies, the majority of 120 children (5-14 years) and 135 adults (16-58 years) judged the nose scrunch as expressing disgust when the preceding set included an anger scowl, but as angry when the anger scowl was omitted. An even greater proportion of observers judged the nose scrunch as angry when the preceding set also included a facial expression of someone about to be sick.