Conference: Theories and methods for conceptualizing facial emotion

Emotions are an important aspect of human life. They serve an adaptive function, steering people toward resources that facilitate survival and away from potential harms. Emotions also enable people to quickly communicate important information to others and to motivate individual and collective action. These complex internal representations are often communicated through facial expressions. Whether or not they perfectly reflect emotional states, people routinely draw inferences about others based on facial displays. Theoretical accounts for these effects rest on the idea that emotional states correspond with unique facial expressions. This perspective is still being developed, and has spurred a number of very important theoretical debates. For example, researchers argue whether emotions are truly discrete, whether cultures vary in how and when emotion is displayed and perceived, and whether social categories influence emotion display and perception. This conference series explores areas of contention within the study of facial affect and emotion recognition and offers a platform for developing novel, competing, and testable hypotheses aimed at advancing scientific understanding. Significant training and networking opportunities are provided to scholars across multiple disciplines. Experts in the field of affective sciences meet for a two-part conference focused on explicating and refining theoretical perspectives related to various aspects of facial emotion expressions. The hybrid conferences are organized around a fully-online meeting, followed by an in-person session scheduled several months subsequent to the first meeting. The conferences provide a forum for debating central theoretical questions related to facial affect and emotion recognition. Outcomes include the development of novel, testable hypotheses meant to resolve outstanding debates and to advance current theoretical positions. The conferences are widely promoted and designed to encourage participation, especially for early-career scholars. Results of the conference are shared broadly. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.