The many faces of a face: Comparing stills and videos of facial expressions in eight dimensions (SAVE database)

• Published in: Behavior research methods Vol. 49; no. 4; pp. 1343 - 1360
• Main Authors: Garrido, Margarida V., Lopes, Diniz, Prada, Marília, Rodrigues, David, Jerónimo, Rita, Mourão, Rui P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.08.2017
• Subjects: Adolescent; Arousal; Behavioral Science and Psychology; Cognitive Psychology; Databases, Factual; Face; Facial Expression; Facial Recognition; Female; Humans; Male; Perception; Photography; Psychology; Recognition (Psychology); Smiling; Social Perception; Young Adult; Similarity; Intensity; Attractiveness; Genuineness; Clarity; Videos; Valence; Arousal; Normative data; Subjective ratings; Familiarity; Stills; Faces
• ISSN: 1554-3528; 1554-3528
• DOI: 10.3758/s13428-016-0790-5

This article presents subjective rating norms for a new set of Stills And Videos of facial Expressions—the SAVE database. Twenty nonprofessional models were filmed while posing in three different facial expressions (smile, neutral, and frown). After each pose, the models completed the PANAS questionnaire, and reported more positive affect after smiling and more negative affect after frowning. From the shooting material, stills and 5 s and 10 s videos were edited (total stimulus set = 180). A different sample of 120 participants evaluated the stimuli for attractiveness, arousal, clarity, genuineness, familiarity, intensity, valence, and similarity. Overall, facial expression had a main effect in all of the evaluated dimensions, with smiling models obtaining the highest ratings. Frowning expressions were perceived as being more arousing, clearer, and more intense, but also as more negative than neutral expressions. Stimulus presentation format only influenced the ratings of attractiveness, familiarity, genuineness, and intensity. The attractiveness and familiarity ratings increased with longer exposure times, whereas genuineness decreased. The ratings in the several dimensions were correlated. The subjective norms of facial stimuli presented in this article have potential applications to the work of researchers in several research domains. From our database, researchers may choose the most adequate stimulus presentation format for a particular experiment, select and manipulate the dimensions of interest, and control for the remaining dimensions. The full stimulus set and descriptive results (means, standard deviations, and confidence intervals) for each stimulus per dimension are provided as supplementary material .