Concerning the specificity of elaboration, the procedure was conducted in a few stages. In the first stage, so-called “face banks” were used, and were gathered by an agency specializing in the recruitment of actors, extras, etc.. Native Polish applicants (n = 120) aged 20–30 were chosen and invited to individual meetings: 30-min photography sessions during which the expected work results were discussed. All of the participants provided signed consent to the recruitment agency and agreed to participate in the project before arriving to the laboratory. After the meeting they were informed that if they did not want to participate they are not obligated to continue the cooperation, and none of the taken photographs will be used in the future. The meetings also aimed to choose participants who had acting experience and positive motivation toward cooperation. After this stage, 60 people were selected and invited to take part in the project.
Natural emotional expression is involuntary, and bringing it under any control requires exercises allowing activation of particular muscles. Therefore, a set of exercises based on an actor training system, the Stanislavski method (1936/1988 ), was developed. The aim was to maximize the authenticity of expressed emotions in photography session conditions. The method assumes that realistic presentation of a given emotion should be based on the concept of emotional memory as a point of focus. Thus, actors must first recall an event when he or she felt given emotion, and then recall physical and psychological sensation. Additionally, this technique includes a method of “physical actions” in which emotions are produced through the use of actions. To do so, the actor performs a physical motion or a series of physical activities to create the desired emotional response for the character. For instance, feeling and expressing sadness presumes recalling sad personal experiences as well as some physical action, e.g., sighing and holding head in hands. The training consisted of three parts: (1) Theoretical presentation about the physiology of emotion and mimic expressions and demonstration of key elements essential for gaining a desired expression. During this stage, participants were also presented the theoretical foundations concerning the creation of the set, which facilitated understanding of the authors' intentions and communication during photography sessions. (2) Training workshops taking place under supervision of the set's authors, and (3) Training and exercises “at home.” The final stage was the photography session during which photographs of practiced expressions were registered. During the sessions, participants were first allowed to focus on the given emotion (so perform exercises evoking emotion) and then show facial expression of felt emotion to the camera. No beards, mustaches, earrings or eyeglasses, and preferably no visible make-up was allowed during this stage, yet matting foundation make-up was applied to avoid skin reflections.
After gathering the photographic material, primary evaluation was conducted. Photographs with appropriate activity of muscular/facial units were selected. Facial unit activity was specified according to descriptions of the FACS (Ekman et al., 2002 ) and characteristics of visible facial changes caused by contraction or relaxation of one or more muscles (so called Action Units) during emotional expression (see Table1 for details). At this stage, approximately 1000 photographs of 46 people were selected by our competent judges. The photographs were subjected to digital processing for format, resolution, and tone standardization. Pictures were initially cropped and resized to 1725 × 1168 pixels and the color-tone was balanced for a white background.
Natural emotional expression is involuntary, and bringing it under any control requires exercises allowing activation of particular muscles. Therefore, a set of exercises based on an actor training system, the Stanislavski method (1936/1988 ), was developed. The aim was to maximize the authenticity of expressed emotions in photography session conditions. The method assumes that realistic presentation of a given emotion should be based on the concept of emotional memory as a point of focus. Thus, actors must first recall an event when he or she felt given emotion, and then recall physical and psychological sensation. Additionally, this technique includes a method of “physical actions” in which emotions are produced through the use of actions. To do so, the actor performs a physical motion or a series of physical activities to create the desired emotional response for the character. For instance, feeling and expressing sadness presumes recalling sad personal experiences as well as some physical action, e.g., sighing and holding head in hands. The training consisted of three parts: (1) Theoretical presentation about the physiology of emotion and mimic expressions and demonstration of key elements essential for gaining a desired expression. During this stage, participants were also presented the theoretical foundations concerning the creation of the set, which facilitated understanding of the authors' intentions and communication during photography sessions. (2) Training workshops taking place under supervision of the set's authors, and (3) Training and exercises “at home.” The final stage was the photography session during which photographs of practiced expressions were registered. During the sessions, participants were first allowed to focus on the given emotion (so perform exercises evoking emotion) and then show facial expression of felt emotion to the camera. No beards, mustaches, earrings or eyeglasses, and preferably no visible make-up was allowed during this stage, yet matting foundation make-up was applied to avoid skin reflections.
After gathering the photographic material, primary evaluation was conducted. Photographs with appropriate activity of muscular/facial units were selected. Facial unit activity was specified according to descriptions of the FACS (Ekman et al., 2002 ) and characteristics of visible facial changes caused by contraction or relaxation of one or more muscles (so called Action Units) during emotional expression (see Table
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