Recognizing emotions in comic strips: results from two reaction times study, and a self-report study

Comic books/strips (e.g., Snoopy, Calvin & Hobbes, Dennis the menace, Wizard of Id) constitute a widely-read emotion-ladden literature genre that is predominantly visual. To assess to what extent 7 different emotions it depicts are recognized by its readers, and on the basis of what features, we carried out 2 Reaction time (RT) studies in which, for each of 138 stimuli (selected from Italian strips published since 1982, designed by several authors) depicting the facial emotional or neutral expression of a strip character, 20 subjects judged either (1) whether the character experienced an emotion (Yes/No), or (2) what emotion it expressed (chosing from a list of 7 emotions, plus 'Neutral expression'). In a questionnaire study 120 subjects judged one of three sets of 38 stimuli (derived from the 138 RT stimuli set), answering a variety of questions about each stimulus. The results overall showed that anger, sadness and fear were recognized most quickly and correctly, whereas disgust and embarrassment were 'slow' and often 'confused' with other emotions; recognition of joy and surprise showed mixed results. Emotion recognition in the RT studies was significantly influenced by Vignette clarity (Clear vs Ambiguous emotional expression; tested in a preliminar study), and in the QS study by the presence of verbal information conveyed in the balloon, and of expressive cues (e.g., tears, a hand covering part of the face). In conclusion, the research showed that in comic books/strips some emotions are more easily recognized than others, and that this is at least in part due to the existence of distinct prototypical facial expression