Pushing the boundaries of human expertise in face perception: Emotion expression identification and error as a function of presentation angle, presentation time, and emotion

Past research results suggest that reliable identification of emotions conveyed by facial expressions can be made either when faces are: (1) briefly glimpsed, or (2) viewed in profile. Of interest was whether such effects would persist when perceivers encountered both manipulations, briefly (100ms) viewing 90-degree profile faces. Our results show that expertise in emotion perception has limits: Identification accuracy of emotions conveyed by facial expressions was poor when 90-degree profile views of faces were presented for only 100ms, especially for the emotions of sadness and anger. Our results also suggest that: (1) overall, observers can more accurately perceive happiness in faces than they could perceive negative emotions, and (2) in relatively easy viewing conditions, identification of faces displaying sadness and anger were most often confused, but when 90-degree profile faces were viewed for only 100ms, sad faces and angry faces were most often misidentified as neutral faces. •Parents viewed child faces displaying various emotional expressions.•Faces were viewed for different durations (unlimited, 600ms, 100ms).•Different face views (full-face, 45° profile, 90° profile) were presented.•Emotion identification accuracy was very poor when 90° faces were viewed for 100ms.•Faces displaying sadness and faces displaying anger were most often confused.