How emotions influence behaviors
Emotion analysis
Emotions are a fundamental part of being human. Emotions are shaped by our brain and influenced by our interests and past experiences.
By including emotion data in research, we can explore human behavior in greater detail and gain better insights. You may include emotion analysis to answer some of these questions:
- How do emotions influence what we buy or eat?
- What is the role of emotion in our interactions with others?
- How do people with developmental disorders process and express emotions?
A day in the life of an emotion researcher
Emotion researchers want to understand how human emotions influence behavior, decision-making, and experiences. They might observe how participants interact with a website or product. Or they may want to know more about how different groups of people process or express emotions.
By analyzing participants' emotional reactions, researchers gain valuable insights into how emotions impact consumer choices, learning, development, or social interactions.
Benefit from the right tools for your emotion research
Researchers use advanced tools like facial expression analysis, physiological measurements, and behavioral tracking to capture these emotions in real-time. Another benefit of using these tools is that it helps researchers to measure emotional responses accurately and non-invasively.
Discover how Noldus can support your research!
What is emotion analysis?
Emotion analysis is the process of measuring and understanding human emotions. It's based on different physical and behavioral cues, like facial expressions, body language, and physiological signals.
Together, these observations help researchers understand how emotions influence behaviors and decisions.
- Optimize products, websites, and advertisements
- Develop treatments for people with developmental disorders
- Understand parent-child interactions
Understanding emotion analysis
How do you measure emotions? In this blog post, you'll discover which tools are available for emotion analysis. Learn more about the benefits of combining self-reports, behavioral measures, physiological responses, and facial expression analysis.
Featured resources
Understanding social media use
Researchers at the Social Media Lab analyze how users interact with social media.
Learn what your users need
This type of research helps civil society organisations and other professionals to identify their customers' needs and implement new tools.
Scientific theories of emotion
In this post, VicarVision outlines how FaceReaderTM is designed with responsible AI principles.
Grounded in science
You'll also learn how FaceReader incorporates different theories of emotions.
How FaceReader is validated in research
How accurate is FaceReader in determining facial expressions?
Extensive validation
In this blog post, you'll learn more about different studies into the validity and applications of FaceReader.
Measuring infant facial expressions
What if you had a way to understand a baby's unspoken needs?
Understanding emotional development
Analyzing facial expressions in infants provides more insights into the early development of emotions.
Best practices for emotion analysis
Clear goals | Think about which emotional states or behaviors you want to study. Choosing a focus helps you gain objective results.
Natural behavior | Keep you study's environment as natural as possible or observe participants in their natural environment. This will help to capture genuine emotional responses and allows for unobtrusive observations.
Experiment setup | Choose the right angles and lighting to accurately capture your participants' emotional responses. Also be sure to minimize distractions and other external factors that may influence their responses.
Multimodal research | Combine facial expression tracking, physiological data, and behavioral observations to get a complete view of emotional reactions.
Validated tools | Make sure your emotion analysis data is accurate and reliable - choose software and methods that are validated in research.
Analysis | Observe emotions in real-time for quick insights or debriefing situations. Analyze emotions after recording for deeper, detailed understanding.
Options for facial expression analysis
Action Units
The Facial Action Coding System (FACS) describes muscle movements in the face, also referred to as Action Units.
- Benefit from objective analysis of facial expressions
- Study the left and the right side of the face separately
- Save time by relying on automated analysis of Action Units
Valence and arousal
Measure how negative or positive an emotion is (valence) and the level of activity caused by the emotion (arousal).
- Better understanding and visualization of emotions
- Differentiate between emotions that are similar in type but vary in intensity
- Assess responses in marketing, consumer science, and psychology
Custom facial expressions
Design your own facial expressions or mental states, such as workload, confusion, boredom, or embarrassment.
- Study nuances in behaviors or emotions that basic expressions can’t always capture
- Adapt your facial expression analysis to the needs and context of your project
- Gain insights into culturally specific or atypical facial expressions
Facial Action Units
Below you can see the 20 Action Units offered in FaceReader as well as some frequently occurring or difficult Action Unit combinations.
Some images have been zoomed in on the area of interest to explicitly show what muscle movement corresponds to the specific Action Unit.
AU 1. Inner Brow Raiser
Contributes to sadness, surprise, and fear. Muscular basis: frontalis (pars medialis).
AU 2. Outer Brow Raiser
Contributes to surprise and fear. Muscular basis: frontalis (pars lateralis).
AU 4. Brow Lowerer
Contributes to sadness, fear, and anger. Muscular basis: depressor glabellae, depressor supercilii, corrugator supercilii.
AU 5. Upper Lid Raiser
Contributes to surprise, fear, and anger. Muscular basis: levator palpebrae superioris, superior tarsal muscle.
AU 6. Cheek Raiser
Contributes to happiness. Muscular basis: orbicularis oculi (pars orbitalis).
AU 7. Lid Tightener
Contributes to fear and anger. Muscular basis: orbicularis oculi (pars palpebralis).
AU 9. Nose Wrinkler
Contributes to disgust. Muscular basis: levator labii superioris alaeque nasi.
AU 10. Upper Lip Raiser
Muscular basis: levator labii superioris, caput infraorbitalis.
AU 12. Lip Corner Puller
Contributes to happiness and contempt. Muscular basis: zygomaticus major.
AU 14. Dimpler
Contributes to contempt and boredom. Muscular basis: buccinator.
AU 15. Lip Corner Depressor
Contributes to sadness and disgust. Muscular basis: depressor anguli oris.
AU 17. Chin Raiser
This Action Unit contributes to the affective attitudes interest and confusion. The underlying facial muscle is mentalis.
AU 18. Lip Pucker
The underlying facial muscles are incisivii labii superioris and incisivii labii inferioris.
AU 20. Lip Stretcher
Contributes to the emotion fear. The underlying facial muscle is risorius w/ platysma.
AU 23. Lip Tightener
Contributes to the emotion anger, and to the affective attitudes confusion and boredom. Muscular basis: orbicularis oris.
AU 24. Lip Pressor
This Action Unit contributes to the affective attitude boredom. The underlying facial muscle is orbicularis oris.
AU 25. Lips Part
The muscular basis consists of depressor labii inferioris, or relaxation of mentalis or orbicularis oris.
AU 26. Jaw Drop
Contributes to the emotions surprise and fear. Muscular basis: masseter; relaxed temporalis and internal pterygoid.
AU 27. Mouth Stretch
The underlying facial muscles are pterygoids and digastric.
AU 43. Eyes Closed
Contributes to the affective attitude boredom. The muscular basis consists of relaxation of Levator palpebrae superioris.
Combinations of Action Units
AU 1 - 2 - 4
Contributes to the emotions fear and can be recognized by the wavy pattern of the wrinkles across the forehead.
AU 1 - 2
Contributes to the emotion surprise and can be recognized by a smooth line formed by the wrinkles across the forehead.
AU 1 - 4
Contributes to sadness. Recognizable by a wavy pattern of the wrinkles in the center of the forehead. Eye-brows come together and up.
AU 4 - 5
Contributes to the emotion anger.
AU 6 - 12
Contributes to happiness. Notice the wrinkles around the eyes caused by cheek raising, also known as the "Duchenne Marker".
AU 10 - 25
Contributes to the emotion disgust. When AU 10 is activated intensely, it causes the lips to part as the upper lip raises.
AU 18 - 23
Often confused as solely AU 18. Notice the lips almost appear to be pulled by a single string outward (AU 18) and then tightened (AU 23).
AU 23 - 24
The AUs marking lip movements are often the hardest to code. The lips are being pushed together (AU 24) and tightened (AU 23).
Are you looking for advice on your application?
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research, or do you need advice from our team of behavioral experts?
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