Observer-Based Measurement of Facial Expression with the Facial Action Coding System

Abstract

Abstract Facial expression has been a focus of emotion research for over a hundred years (Darwin, 1872/1998). It is central to several leading theories of emotion (Ekman, 1992; Izard, 1977; Tomkins, 1962) and has been the focus of at times heated debate about issues in emotion science (Ekman, 1973, 1993; Fridlund, 1992; Russell, 1994). Facial expression figures prominently in research on almost every aspect of emotion, including psychophysiology (Levenson, Ekman, & Friesen, 1990), neural bases (Calder et al., 1996; Davidson, Ekman, Saron, Senulis, & Friesen, 1990), development (Malatesta, Culver, Tesman, & Shephard, 1989; Matias & Cohn, 1993), perception (Ambadar, Schooler, & Cohn, 2005), social processes (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1992; Hess & Kirouac, 2000), and emotion disorder (Kaiser, 2002; Sloan, Straussa, Quirka, & Sajatovic, 1997), to name a few.