The influence of context on emotion recognition in humans

Facial expressions do not typically occur in a social vacuum. Rather, they are seen and understood in a social context. Specifically, the understanding of the more ambiguous facial expressions shown in everyday interactions tends to be influenced not only by the knowledge we have about the situation in which the emotion eliciting event occurred but also by knowledge of social norms and rules and by the motivations and goals of the perceiver. Finally, the face itself is not an empty canvas and facial morphology interacts with facial expression.