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July 27, 2004

more on facial expressions

filed under characterization | prose matters

I've posted about this at some length before, but now I've stumbled on a few more websites about the analysis of facial expressions which have given me a way to think about this more concretely. First there's a portal to a database on the analysis of facial expression in Japanese females, but simpler and easier to play with is this site that allows you to change a simple set of features to see what happens.embarrasseduneasysurprise

All this is an offshoot of the perennial problem of describing a character's reactions. You can use the short hand: his expression gave away his surprise, or you can try to be more descriptive: his eyes bulged and his brows climbed half way up his forehead.

The second one is clumsy; the first one is empty. Also, without considering what the mouth is doing, you don't know what kind of surprise we're talking about: happy, unwelcome, embarrassing. This first mouth looks embarrassed to me, lopsided, teeth flashing. The second one looks like a happy surprise on the basis of the wide smile, but it's also uneasy.

I really do have to start making notes of how this is handled whenever I'm reading. It would be a useful database, and I think quite a revealing one.

July 27, 2004 04:15 PM

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Comments

Ooh, have you run across the work of Paul Ekman? I've admired his stuff since his early work on detecting lies. Re faces, see: "Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life." Website at http://www.paulekman.com/index.php

Posted by: robyn at July 27, 2004 07:43 PM