Multiple Messages: Facial Recognition Advantage for Compound Expressions

The impact of singular (e.g. sadness alone) and compound (e.g. sadness and anger together) facial expressions on individuals’ recognition of faces was investigated. In three studies, a face recognition paradigm was used as a measure of the proficiency with which participants processed compound and singular facial expressions. For both positive and negative facial expressions, participants displayed greater proficiency in processing compound expressions relative to singular expressions. Specifically, the accuracy with which faces displaying compound expressions were recognized was significantly higher than the accuracy with which faces displaying singular expressions were recognized. Possible explanations involving the familiarity, distinctiveness, and salience of the facial expressions are discussed. One of the most interesting aspects about nonverbal communication is that as a communication system, it is multiform; the system is diverse both in the types of messages that are sent and in the ways that the messages are relayed. That is, a great deal of information may be relayed by individuals via a number of different communication channels such as, the body, tone of voice, and facial expression (DePaulo & Friedman, 1998). The different channels through which messages are communicated are often used independently, but simultaneously (DePaulo, Rosenthal, Green, & Rosenkrantz, 1982). Multiple messages, or messages in which multiple channels of communication are used simultaneously, have often been studied in terms of their consistency or inconsistency across different verbal and nonverbal Debi LaPlante and Nalini Ambady, Harvard University. We gratefully acknowledge the support of a PECASE award from the National Science Foundation (Grant BCS-9733706). Portions of this article were presented at the American Psychological Society Showcase Poster session at the 9th annual meeting of the American Psychological Society, Washington, D.C. We would like to thank Marvin Hecht for his help and comments on these studies, and an anonymous reviewer for suggestions made for this article. Address correspondence to Debi LaPlante, William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, Harvard University, Cambridge MA 02138; e-mail: dal wjh.harvard.edu.