How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain

Barrett begins this chapter with a photo of a woman who, according to most viewers raised in a Western culture, is “screaming in terror” (42). However, she reveals that the image is actually a close-up of Serena Williams celebrating her victory in an important tennis game. The common misconception of this photo reveals that our ability to interpret others’ emotions is highly dependent on the context in which we see them. Barrett claims that this contradicts the classical theory of emotion, which holds that feelings have unique, universally identifiable facial and brain “fingerprints.”

Barrett then transitions to interrogating scientific studies that purport to prove the classical theory of emotion. When the famous study that asked participants to choose an emotion and match it to a picture was altered to allow subjects to come up with their own interpretation, their answers varied widely from the “correct” response. Barrett altered this study by showing images side by side, without any written cues or labels, and asked subjects if the images were showing the same emotion; once again, answers varied. Additionally, Barrett’s team performed a study on dementia patients who had lost their emotion concepts.