Emotional Tears Communicate Sadness but Not Excessive Emotions Without Other Contextual Knowledge.

ABSTRACT: Contexts of face perception are diverse. They range from the social environment to body postures, from the expresser's gaze direction to the tone of voice. In extending the research on contexts of face perception, we investigated people's perception of tears on a face. The act of shedding tears is often perceived as an expression of sad feelings aroused by experiencing loss, disappointment, or helplessness. Alternatively, tears may also represent the excessive intensity of any emotion, such as extreme fear during an unexpected encounter with a giant bear and extreme happiness when you win a competition. Investigating these competing interpretations of tears, we found that the addition of tears to different facial expressions made the expressions conceptually closer to sad expressions. In p

SUBMITTER: Ito K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6491854 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature