There's an intuitive appeal to the idea that facial expressions convey emotions, but it's wrong. For example, I don't bare my teeth when I smile. My muscles just don't work that way. Does that mean I'm never laughing or happy? Far from it! As a thought experiment, I sometimes pretend people who smile are snarling. Other times I pretend a smile means they are lying. It dramatically changes my first impression! But it feels just as natural as interpreting teeth as happiness and joy (it's a thought experiment you can try for yourself - take any gesture (a smile, a shrug, a laugh) and pretend it means something different from what you would normally assume). "In real life, people express a given emotion with tremendous variability." Emotion-detection AI systems are based on a conflation of movement and meaning rooted in western culture, so much so that the "labels (assessors) were given to use were emotion words, such as "angry," rather than physical descriptions, such as 'scowling.'" And it makes me wonder just how accurately instructors interpret expressions during in-person learning; they may feel like they're 'reading the room', but maybe they're just fooling themselves.
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