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Cowen AS, Keltner D. Universal facial expressions uncovered in art of the ancient Americas: A computational approach. Sci Adv. 2020;6(34):eabb1005doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abb1005.
Cowen, A. S., & Keltner, D. (2020). Universal facial expressions uncovered in art of the ancient Americas: A computational approach. Science advances, 6(34), eabb1005. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abb1005
Cowen, Alan S, and Keltner, Dacher. "Universal facial expressions uncovered in art of the ancient Americas: A computational approach." Science advances vol. 6,34 (2020): eabb1005. doi: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abb1005
Cowen AS, Keltner D. Universal facial expressions uncovered in art of the ancient Americas: A computational approach. Sci Adv. 2020 Aug 19;6(34):eabb1005. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abb1005. eCollection 2020 Aug. PMID: 32875109; PMCID: PMC7438103.
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Sci Adv. 2020 Aug 19;6(34):eabb1005. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abb1005. eCollection 2020 Aug.

Universal facial expressions uncovered in art of the ancient Americas: A computational approach.

Science advances

Alan S Cowen, Dacher Keltner

Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.

PMID: 32875109 PMCID: PMC7438103 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abb1005

Abstract

Central to the study of emotion is evidence concerning its universality, particularly the degree to which emotional expressions are similar across cultures. Here, we present an approach to studying the universality of emotional expression that rules out cultural contact and circumvents potential biases in survey-based methods: A computational analysis of apparent facial expressions portrayed in artwork created by members of cultures isolated from Western civilization. Using data-driven methods, we find that facial expressions depicted in 63 sculptures from the ancient Americas tend to accord with Western expectations for emotions that unfold in specific social contexts. Ancient American sculptures tend to portray at least five facial expressions in contexts predicted by Westerners, including "pain" in torture, "determination"/"strain" in heavy lifting, "anger" in combat, "elation" in social touch, and "sadness" in defeat-supporting the universality of these expressions.

Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).

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