Understanding Others’ Emotions : How Do We Do It?
It’s a Saturday night and you’ve just walked into a crowded room at a friend’s party. The room is bumping and everyone is having a good time.
As you turn the corner you recognize an old friend leaning up against a table. Approaching him you notice he seems to be having a good time but you can sense something is off.
You get the feeling he is worried, but in an anxious type of way — as if something has been on his mind for quite some time. You can simply tell from the look on his face that he’s been contemplating whatever is on his mind for quite some time. Approaching him you ask in a soft tone ask, “Is everything ok?”.
How did you know what he was feeling?
Within milliseconds of seeing your friend your brain was able to understand his complex emotional and mental state. Even though he hadn’t said a word, you knew something was wrong. By the way he was dancing his body language said he was having a great time, but his face said something else.
How did you know he was upset? Sure, you could see it in his face, but what exactly could you see? How did you come to understand what he was feeling?
We are visual machines
Humans have the ability to process large amounts of visual information within milliseconds. We make complex inferences from this information the moment we process it. MIT neuroscientists have found that the brain can identify images seen for as little as 13 milliseconds.
MIT neuroscientists have found that the brain can identify images seen for as little as 13 milliseconds.
It turns out it’s not just objects we’re really good at identifying but even more so — faces.
We’ve come to learn through our experiences and millions of years of evolution to understand what others are feeling— allowing to us to make complex connections between what we see and what one feels.
Human expressions are highly complex though. According to the Association for Psychological Science there are at least 3.7 x 1016 different expression combinations, which is about the same probabilistic space as two Powerball jackpots. It’s still a mystery (to some extent) to neuroscientists how we are able to perceive and understand others’ emotions.
Before our visual systems are fully developed we have trouble distinguishing between basic shapes. We can’t tell the difference between a square and a triangle, a circle and a rectangle but we can zero in on something as complex as a face.
In fact, research has shown that babies can even recognize the shape of a face before they are born.
Within milliseconds our brains are able to identify a person’s expression and make a connection between what that that person is showing and what they are feeling.
But what is it about the face?
Let’s say I told you that you can only focus on one part of a person’s face in an effort to identify their emotional state. Which feature would you select? Ears? Eyebrows? Mouth?
Which feature do you think would provide the most amount of information about someone’s emotional state?
Take a look at this image again…
What is she feeling?
Is she happy? sad? angry? upset? excited? You can see upwards of 90% of the photo but now you have no idea what it is that she is feeling.
Notice how in photo I blocked out her eyes and all the sudden it is very hard to understand what it is she is feeling.
Let’s flip that around and see how much emotional information we can now infer…
The Eyes Are a Window Into the Soul
You can only see a small section of the photo but since you are able to see her eyes, you can understand what she is feeling. You understand that she feels safe, content and at ease in what looks to be her father’s arms. The saying “the eyes are a window into the soul” is where this comes from.
It’s all in the eyes
In Robert Sapolsky’s book Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, he estimates that 80% of ones emotional state is communicated simply through the eyes alone.
See the eyes below, notice how much of the emotional state is given away simply by her eyes.
As you think about your next outreach campaign, website overhaul or marketing campaign, if you’re striving to convey emotion it is critical to keep this in mind. Don’t just show faces but show the eyes. After all, without the eyes you’ll be missing 90% of the picture.
Until next time,
Nate
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