O papel do contexto na percepção de emoções

Abstract

From all aspects of non-verbal behavior, the face is undoubtedly one of therichest and most important sources of information about the internal statesof others. But facial expressions are rarely perceived in isolation. On thecontrary, they are embedded in rich, dynamic social contexts that includebody gestures and postures, situational knowledge, and so on. On the basisof these observations, we can naturally wonder if the overall context in whi-ch the face is embedded can change how emotions are perceived in facialexpressions. If so, in what ways, and what are the limits of these contextual effects? The purpose of this paper is to explore some possibilities concer-ning the role of context in emotion perception, from basic emotion theory,who holds that discrete emotion categories can be read out directly from theface in an invariant manner, to more contemporary approaches that assign aconstitutive role for context in emotion perception. Although the debate isfar from settled, the conclusions of the paper will point to a new way of lo-oking at emotional phenomena, where the dyad of interaction becomes thebasic unit of analysis, and where emotions are conceived as emergent pro-perties of a relationship in particular contexts of interaction.