Facial expressions as performances in mime

ABSTRACT

That facial expressions are universal emotion signals has been supported by observers agreeing on the emotion mimed by actors. We show that actors can mime a diverse range of states: emotions, cognitions, physical states, and actions. English, Hindi, and Malayalam speakers (N = 1200) viewed 25 video clips and indicated the state conveyed. Within each language, at least 23 of the 25 clips were recognised above chance and base rate. Facial expressions of emotions are not special in their recognisability, and it is miming that may be the universal human ability.

KEYWORDS:

• mime
• emotion
• affect
• facial expressions
• cross-cultural

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank actors, David Jenkins and Becky Baumwoll, for their assistance in creating the stimuli used in this study. We would also like to thank Dolichan Kollareth for his assistance in translating the study into Hindi and Malayalam, and Kelly Sangster for her assistance with data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.