Facial areas and emotional information.

After two decades of scattered research, there has been a resurgence of interest in the predictability and measurement of facial expressions of emotion. Current studies and reanalysis of older experiments have clearly shown that facial expressions can provide accurate information about emotion (10, Chapter 15). Recently consistent evidence also has been obtained to show that the morphology of facial expressions is pan-cultural for at least five or six emotions (cf. 5; 6, p. 7; 16). Coincident with and partly in response to these findings on accuracy and universality, there has been a renewed interest in the question of just where in the face one should look to find such information about emotion. There are two ways to ask this question; indeed, there have been two ways in which prior research on this matter has been conducted. The question can be asked in terms of which facial area to scrutinize (top or bottom, for example). Or the question can be put in terms of which particular muscular movement or facial component should be examined. (For example, within the top area there are a number of components, such as raised brow, lowered brow, drawn together brow, horizontal or vertical forehead wrinkles.) Researchers asking the question in terms of facial areas have