Universality of facial expressions: An interplay between biology and culture

The majority of people almost effortlessly read emotions based on the facial expressions of other people. Numerous studies suggest that even newborns are showing interest in faces and facial expressions suggesting that this ability might be relevant from the evolutionary standpoint. This is additionally supported by cross-cultural studies that clearly demonstrate the existence of a limited number of basic emotions which are universal. Furthermore, the influence of culture and the living environment is evident regarding emotional display and recognition accuracy. From a developmental standpoint, available data suggest that the development of facial expressions recognition could be described by an inverted U curve. Starting from childhood through adulthood, we are developing the same sort of expertise in facial expression recognition. Later, with aging, the recognition of particular expressions is declining. The exact underlying mechanisms that play a role here are not fully grasped yet. In this review, we shortly summarized previous studies that investigated the universality of facial expressions and cultural effects on facial expressions recognition. Furthermore, the potential developmental courses were explained and some of the open questions were outlined regarding this topic.