La Perception des Émotions Comme Perception de L'affect

Abstract

Can we perceive emotions in another person’s face? According to some phi-losophers the answer to this question is positive: by seeing a person’s facial expression of happiness I hereby see her happiness. The aim of this paper is to argue that this is not the case: when we see another person’s facial expression, we do not perceive the corresponding emotion, but rather the affective aspect of the emotion. In addition, I suggest that the perception of this affective aspect emerges from a peculiar perception-action loop that is automatically activated when an observer encounters a face expressing an emotion.