Cite as:
Pollick F E, Hill H, Folwaczny A, Gray G, Holmes R, Love S, 1999, "Contributions of facial and head motion in the interpretation of expression" Perception 28 ECVP Abstract Supplement

Contributions of facial and head motion in the interpretation of expression

F E Pollick, H Hill, A Folwaczny, G Gray, R Holmes, S Love

Movement of both the head and the face are used to express emotion and to aid communication. Previous research by Bassili with point-light displays of facial movement indicated that point-light displays of facial movement are sufficient to provide an interpretation of emotion. We investigated how head movements combine with facial movements to obtain an interpretation of expression. A 3-D position analysis system was used to measure 22 locations on the face while an actor displayed expressions of anger, happiness, fear, and sadness. For each expression, the position data were separated into components of head and facial motion. These two separate motion cues were combined in all possible combinations to obtain 16 displays. Pairs of these displays were presented for participants to make dissimilarity judgments. A multidimensional scaling analysis was applied to these data. Results indicated that the happy facial expression dominated when combined with other head movements, whereas the angry head movement dominated over all but the happy facial expression. These results are discussed in the context of the relative strength of these two separate motion cues and their patterns of combination.

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