Research

I am Rachael Jack, Professor of Computational Social Cognition here in the School of Psychology & Neuroscience. I research the facial expression of emotion within and across cultures using an interdisciplinary approach that combines psychophysics, social psychology, dynamic 3D computer graphics, and communication/information theory. Most notably, my work has revealed cultural specificities in facial expressions of emotion; that four, not six, expressive patterns are common across cultures; and that facial expressions transmit information in a hierarchical structure over time. Together, this work challenges the dominant view that six basic facial expressions of emotion are universal, which has led to a new theoretical framework of facial expression communication that I am now transferring to digital agents, to synthesize culturally sensitive social avatars and robots.