Expression of Emotion Versus Expressions of Emotions

Abstract

In the 1970's, when the study of nonverbal behavior was having its "renaissance", field studies on spontaneous facial expressions had some audience (e.g., Birdwhistell, 1970), but they were soon substituted by experimental studies (see Ekman, 1972). Since then, field studies on spontaneous facial expressions of emotion have been very rare. To the best of our knowledge, only Kraut and Johnston (1979) have published a well-known series of works on these lines, and recently Camras has reported some data from observation in a semi-natural setting (see Camras, Malatesta, & Izard, 1991).