Gender Differences in Facial Expressions of Affect During Learning

Abstract

Affective support is crucial during learning, with recent evidence suggesting it is particularly important for female students. Facial expression is a rich channel for affect detection, but a key open question is how facial displays of affect differ by gender during learning. This paper presents an analysis suggesting that facial expressions for women and men differ systematically during learning. Using facial video automatically tagged with facial action units, we find that despite no differences between genders in incoming knowledge, self-efficacy, or personality profile, women displayed one lower facial action unit significantly more than men, while men displayed brow lowering and lip fidgeting more than women. However, numerous facial actions including brow raising and nose wrinkling were strongly correlated with learning in women, whereas only one facial action unit, eyelid raiser, was associated with learning for men. These results suggest that the entire affect adaptation pipeline, from detection to response, may benefit from gender-specific models in order to support students more effectively.