Taylor Brown
January 1, 2013
Science Fair
Research Topic and Procedure
Can you tell how another person feels by their facial expression?
Taylor Brown
January 1, 2013
Science Fair
Question Being Asked:
Can you tell how another person feels by their facial expression?
Hypothesis:
I believe that it would be quite easy to determine how a person feels by their facial expression
depending on their personality. Meaning, I think it would be easier to tell if someone who openly
expresses their emotions feelings, rather than someone who doesn’t like to show if they are upset
or angry.
Description of Process:
I will first have willing volunteers sign a permission slip saying that I may use their data for my
project. I will then use the willing adult volunteer as a model, and ask them to take six different
pictures that depict six basic emotions. The emotions will be contempt, sad, angry, fear, disgust,
and surprise; the pictures will be printed out with the features of the face labeled. I will record
the volunteer’s age and gender. Then I will test out my project on different volunteer’s and
record their data, when finished I will compile the results to see what person had better results.
Taylor Brown
January 1, 2013
Science Fair
Background Information and Bibliography
Research Question:
Can you tell how another person feels by their facial expression?
Hypothesis:
It will be easy to tell how another person feels by their facial expression if they are the kind of
person to show how they feel and not bottle it up.
Background Information:
An expression is what you get when your facial muscles work together. A facial expression is to
show how someone feels or give off warning signs. For example, if an angry or upset person is
visibly angry you might be able to tell they are going to attack someone physically or verbally. It
has been debated whether or not facial expressions were a matter of race and culture. Some
psychologist believed that it was, and in the 1960s were proven wrong by Friesen and Ekmann
from a tribe in Papua, New Guinea.
The two men tested their theory by using pictures of six basic emotions and showing them to the
tribesmen, only to have them prove them right, by being able to easily tell the emotion felt by the
person because of their expression. In the 1800s Charles Darwin also theorized that facial
expressions were universal, despite a person’s race or culture. It is still debated about today
though, whether or not facial expressions universally mean the same thing.
Works Cited:
"Science Fair Project Ideas, Answers, & Tools." Science Fair Project Ideas, Answers, & Tools.
N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2012. <http://www.sciencebuddies.org>.
"Paul Ekman Group, LLC |." Paul Ekman Group, LLC. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2012.
“What's in a Face?" Facial Expressions:. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2012.