This course is about faces and feelings – your own and those of the people around you. The first focus is on what the feelings look like, in other people & faces and on your own. Images show the facial blueprints of the major emotions – how surprise, fear, anger, disgust, sadness, and happiness are registered by changes in the forehead, eyebrows, eyelids, cheeks, nose, lips and chin. Common confusions that plague the recognition of expressions of emotions are clarified by highlighting the differences between surprise and fear, anger and disgust, sadness and fear. The subtleties of facial expressions of emotion are revealed in the family of expressions for each feeling. Surprise, for example, is an emotion with a big family.

There is not one surprise facial expression, but many – questioning surprise, dumbfounded surprise, dazed surprise, slight, moderate and extreme surprise. The complexities of facial expressions are described on how different emotions can blend into a single facial expression to show sad-angry expressions, angry-afraid expression, surprise-fearful expressions and so forth.

You can use this information about the blueprints of facial expression to better understand the feelings of others, even when they are trying not to reveal their feelings. You can use the knowledge of the blueprints of facial expression to learn about your own face, to become more aware of what your face is telling you about, how you feel and what your face is telling others. You will be able to determine whether your facial expressions are characterized by a particular style.