Department of Cognitive Science
Perception of other people's emotions
Edoardo Zamuner (e.zamuner@latrobe.edu.au)
Philosophy Department, La Trobe University, BundooraAbstract
In this paper I argue that one of the functions of the perceptual system is to detect other people's emotions when they are expressed in the face. I support this view by developing two separate but interdependent accounts. The first says that facial expressions of emotions carry information about the emotions that produced them, and about some of their properties. The second says that the visual system functions to extract the information that expressions carry about emotions.Citation details for this article:
Zamuner, E. (2010). Perception of Other People’s Emotions. In W. Christensen, E. Schier, and J. Sutton (Eds.), ASCS09: Proceedings of the 9th Conference of the Australasian Society for Cognitive Science (pp. 384-392). Sydney: Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science.DOI: 10.5096/ASCS200958
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