Development and validation of a face database for the recognition of facial expressions of basic emotions in the Brazilian population

Abstract

Abstract Background The recognition of facial expressions of emotions is an essential skill for social functioning, as it enables recognizing the possible intentions of others. Main body. Cultural context is an important aspect to consider in this skill, as it tends to modulate the recognition of facial expressions. Objective To develop and validate a set of facial expressions of basic emotions of Brazilian individuals considering the population distribution of the country according to age group, sex, and race. Methods A procedure with three phases was created to generate basic emotions and photograph facial expressions. A total of 459 Brazilians were then asked to identify the emotions of these facial expressions. Content validity was investigated based on the analysis of specialists and the recognition of emotions by Brazilian individuals. Results The final database consists of 56 high-quality color images. A good level of agreement was found for the expressions perceived by the assessors (81.6%). Conclusion The percentage of correct recognition of each emotion and the characteristics of the models are presented so that future studies can choose the most adequate images to meet their specific needs.

Keywords

• Facial expressions of emotions
• Social cognition
• Face database
• Psychometric qualities