Facial Expressions and Emotional Awareness: Why Context Matters
Emily Turner
When a facial expression is seen out of context – isolated from other cues like speech, gestures, posture, and environmental details -the expression still conveys emotional information, but not as much information as when it is viewed within its full social context. When the observer has no ongoing relationship with the person who shows the expression, no past experience, no current knowledge or intended future, then the facial cues provided cannot be interpreted with the same level of...