Perception of six basic emotional facial expressions by the Chinese

Abstract

Thirty morphed emotional faces were developed along a happiness-surprise- fear-sadness-disgust-anger-happiness continuum, and 71 Chinese participants were asked to label each of them in a forced-choice task. The frequency curves for correctly labeling each emotion across the morphed photographs showed six discrete peaks. The labeling results are consistent with categorical perception of basic emotions, although morphed photographs were used, and with the hypothesis of universal facial expressions of emotions, although disgust is not included in the Chinese idiom of seven emotions. © 2006 Sage Publications.