Basic Emotions and Universal Facial Expressions Paul Ekman and his colleagues have precisely calibrated the muscles used in facial expressions for basic emotions. Ekman showed that people in a wide variety of cultures—even those with no experience of Western culture—were able to identify facial expressions for each of the basic emotions. You can test your own ability to recognize facial expressions of emotion at http://www.emotionwisegroup.org/emotion-test
From Matsumoto, D., & Ekman, P. (1989) Japanese and Caucasian Facial Expressions of Emotion. JACFEE. Photographs courtesy of David Matsumoto and Humintell, LLC.