Emotion words shape emotion percepts.

TLDR

People believe that facial expressions directly reveal others’ emotions, with simple facial actions instantly conveying emotional states. The study investigates whether perceivers unknowingly influence emotion perception through knowledge of emotion words. Two studies were conducted to test whether emotion concepts shape visual percepts of emotion. Perceptual priming of emotional faces was disrupted when the relevant emotion word was temporarily inaccessible, showing that the same face was encoded differently depending on word accessibility and supporting a linguistically relative view of emotion perception.

Abstract

People believe they see emotion written on the faces of other people. In an instant, simple facial actions are transformed into information about another's emotional state. The present research examined whether a perceiver unknowingly contributes to emotion perception with emotion word knowledge. We present 2 studies that together support a role for emotion concepts in the formation of visual percepts of emotion. As predicted, we found that perceptual priming of emotional faces (e.g., a scowling face) was disrupted when the accessibility of a relevant emotion word (e.g., anger) was temporarily reduced, demonstrating that the exact same face was encoded differently when a word was accessible versus when it was not. The implications of these findings for a linguistically relative view of emotion perception are discussed.