Facial Expression Recognition of Portuguese using American Data as a Reference

It is unknown if the ability of Portuguese in the identification of NimStim data set, which was created in America to provide facial expressions that could be recognized by untrained people, is (or not) similar to the Americans. To test this hypothesis the performance of Portuguese in the recognition of Happiness, Surprise, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger NimStim facial expressions was compared with the Americans, but no significant differences were found. In both populations the easiest emotion to identify was Happiness while Fear was the most difficult one. However, with exception for Surprise, Portuguese tend to show a lower accuracy rate for all the emotions studied. Results highlighted some cultural differences.