Customer Reviews

What the Face Reveals: Basic and Applied Studies of Spontaneous Expression Using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) (Series in Affective Science)

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I am a contributor to this book and know many of the other authors therein, but receive no
compensation from its sale. Having declared this possible conflict of interest, I can recommend
purchase of this book if you are interested in learning what can be discovered from the face
through measurement of facial muscular action in scientific research. Its approximately 500
pages contains 22 scientific articles, mostly published previously in journals, that report
research studies conducted in the late 1970s to the early 1990s, most towards this later date.
These articles cover a diverse range of topics, methods, and principles having to do with the
relationship between facial expression and emotion; clinical diagnosis, treatment, and outcome;
and other related issues. The editors's selection process, based on the use in the study of the
Facial Action Coding System (FACS, a method for measuring facial behavior), has included
competent research with above average interest, thoughtful reflection, theoretical and practical
relevance, and plain good sense that generally exceeds what you might find, for example, in your
typical social psychology journal. The authors of the articles work in many places around the
world and represent most of the people in the vanguard of the FACS movement and the new
approaches to studying behavior and emotion. This book is particularly helpful if you are new to
the study of facial behavior or have not been diligent in collecting the important articles using
facial measurement, which are published many different journals. The book provides an efficient
vehicle to catch up on the significant issues, findings, trends, and controversies in the areas
covered, including the quality and usefulness of the information provided by the face, the
relationship of facial expression to emotion, whether emotion is a coherent response system,
differences between genuine and false smiles, expression in pathological states, affect in the
psychotheraputic process, etc. The included works provide a solid foundation for understanding
how facial measurement contributes to investigating behavioral science problems. Even in the
unlikely event that you have previously read all the published works reprinted here, this volume
has value because each chapter has at least one afterward that expands on the original work in
revealing and useful ways that bring you up to date on the topic, and there is one thought
provoking article by Ekman et al. on the relation between facial behavior and psychiatric
outcomes that you will not find elsewhere. Also, the editors include their own new chapters
introducing, and finally, summarizing and integrating the works included. A table of contents,
forward by M. Brewster Smith, original source references, author list, and a lengthy subject
index are included. Take a look at the table of contents provided on this site to see more
details. The overall statement of this book is that the face contains important data about
concepts that are vital to diverse behavioral science issues. You will find that the perspective
of this book is different from several other books on facial expression currently in print. If
you are contemplating research on emotion, facial behavior, non-verbal behavior, and related
topics, this book is a helpful guide containing useful background; if you are currently planning
research in these fields, it is indispensible reading.

This book is far more technical and should be considered advanced among those that are attempting to understand body language.

This is a very techinal book, containing papers poublished in scientific journals. While I liked it very much, it was a tough read.

I ordered this item because I needed it for writing my bachelor thesis. But I didn't expect this book would be that big and "that" scientific. But I really like this book! It delivers insight into this interesting world of FACS and how you can read it. And because of this collection of those different studies you don't get a one-sided view from FACS.
Shorted: This book can be a really good thing if you are interested in FACS and micro expressions!

I bought this book as a gift and did not read it but gave a good scan. It looks like it was the best research ever done on the subject matter, as a matter of fact, that is the display of data that the writter mostly use, the typical reserach method's. I think this book will hardly be of good use to the average indivudual who is not a researcher o proffesional, I would say not even to those last unless they interested in having the hard data.I could use it only if I would extract my own resume that will certainly need to be no less than 30 hand written pages and I would have to draw the rictuses and face signatures of reference since there are very few on the book.
I am really interested on the subject and want to buy some of his books but reading the reviews to the other more lay man's accessible books Dr. Eckman has, I see that the other readers remarks simile mine.
I think that with time the writter will come with the correct product but as any thing in life there is a path whose next step you do not know until you have taken the previous one.