Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40180758›Full record

SynthesisPsychonomic bulletin & review2025

Interactions between faces and visual context in emotion perception: A meta-analysis.

Ben A Steward, Paige Mewton, Romina Palermo, Amy Dawel

Abstract readMeta-AnalysisReview
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Synthesis in Psychonomic bulletin & review, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
5citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

5 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Reading body and face language in male schizophrenia.Schizophrenia (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2026
    Article
  2. Review
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Ben A StewardSchool of Medicine and Psychology, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia. Ben.Steward@anu.edu.au.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7517-9215
Paige MewtonSchool of Medicine and Psychology, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1744-1155
Romina PalermoSchool of Psychological Science, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, 6009, Australia.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8678-4592
Amy DawelSchool of Medicine and Psychology, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6668-3121

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Long-standing theories in emotion perception, such as basic emotion theory, argue that we primarily perceive others' emotions through facial expressions. However, compelling evidence shows that other visual contexts, such as body posture or scenes, significantly influence the emotions perceived from faces and vice versa. We used meta-analysis to synthesise and quantify these effects for the first time, testing if faces have primacy over context after accounting for key moderators. Namely, the emotional congruency and clarity of the stimuli. A total of 1,020 effect sizes from 37 articles and 3,198 participants were meta-analysed using three-level mixed-effects models with robust variance estimation. Both visual context and faces were found to have large effects on emotion labelling for the other (g

Indexed as

EmotionsFacial ExpressionFacial RecognitionSocial PerceptionVisual PerceptionHumansAffective integrationFacial primacyNonverbal communication

Identifiers

PMID40180758
PMCPMC12426097

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.