Perceived realism of dynamic facial expressions of emotion: Optimal durations for the presentation of emotional onsets and offsets

Abstract

The presentation of facial displays of emotions is an important method in emotion-recognition studies in various basic and applied settings. This study intends to make a methodological contribution and investigates the perceived realism of dynamic facial expressions for six emotions (fear, sadness, anger, happiness, disgust, and surprise). We presented dynamic displays of faces evolving from a neutral to an emotional expression (onsets) and faces evolving from an emotional expression to a neutral one (offsets). Participants rated the perceived realism of stimuli of different durations (240–3040 ms) and adjusted the duration of each sequence until they perceived it as maximally realistic. Durations perceived as most realistic are reported for each emotion, providing an important basis for the construction of dynamic facial stimuli for future research.

Keywords:

• Emotion
• Facial expressions
• Dynamic expressions
• Presentation times

Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by grants from the Transregional Collaborative Research Centre SFB/TRR 62 “Companion-Technology for Cognitive Technical Systems” funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).