The Russian film director left Kula shot made his first film at the age of 19 and became a powerful figure in the Soviet film industry. He also made an astonishing psychological discovery. He intercut shots of Ivan masuka in a Russian silent film star with three images, a bowl of soup, a child in an open coffin, and a glamorous young woman reclining on a divan. People were impressed by masuka and subtle acting showing hunger, grief and lust, but Miss Hawkins acting wasn't so subtle as non existent. As you can see, the very same shot was used in each case, showing the relatively impressive face with scenes ladened with emotion causes people to impose their own interpretations on most who can see emotional state. The color shock effect is now widely used in cinema and is highly influential.

The background of a still photograph can dramatically change how our faces read emotionally. Context turns out to be far more important than we imagined. Consider this photo of a woman. When you look at it alone, it can appear to be open to one interpretation by what we're seeing on her face. In this case, you're probably seeing anger and frustration. However, if we change the context, this can change.

In the context of a crowd of supporters, she looks happy, or even triumphant. The general principle here is that your brain interprets each piece of perceptual input to make as much sense as possible in light of the wider context. Sometimes it's not that easy to accurately pick up on the emotional state of another person through their facial tics. impressions alone. Here is an interesting optical illusion that demonstrates this. Look at these images, get up from your seat and move back about three or four meters.

What you'll notice in this optical illusion is that the faces appear to swap emotions so that the neutral face appears angry and the angry face appears neutral. What is the emotional state of this person? It's difficult to determine. Some people have a particular syndrome it's called Moebius syndrome. It's a rare genetic disorder and this means that they have a mask like expression. This is due to policies of the cranial nerves.

Also, people who've had too many Botox injections have a mask like expression and they are constantly showing happiness in all of These examples it's dangerous to make assumptions about a person's emotional state based purely on what you see on their face. Other expressions of underlying motion have to be reviewed. There isn't a distinct pattern of emotion that could be mapped in the brain, as they're not that distinct and they appear to vary from individual to individual. Not everyone smiles when they're happy, or skills when they're angry. they emerge from the physical properties of your body, how your brain is wired through development, and your culture and upbringing. They're not experienced and expressed universally.

It's recently been suggested that emotions or cultural cultural display rules dictate which emotions are displayed and considered acceptable. And these guide how they're experienced. Some languages have labels for emotion. lists are not labeled in other languages. For example to Eton's don't have a word for sadness. Does this mean that they don't experience this emotion?

This is an interesting area of current debate and investigation. The German word Sheldon froideur indicates joy at someone else's misfortune. It has no equivalent in English. The skill around understanding emotions in others is to ask them, ask them what they're feeling and what it means to them. And to do this without prejudice or judgment. The learning points from all of this is not to make snap judgments on the basis of limited information.

Keep an open mind and look for more evidence that will support or contradict your initial interpretation.