Abstract
The present study examined the cognitive evaluation of facial expressions. The amounts of time taken by 32 participants (from the general population) to find the different face in a set of photos where 31 faces were the same and only one was different, were analysed. The variations of the faces were due to identity and/or facial expressions (happiness, anger, neutral or combinations of these). The results showed that the happiness expression was detected the fastest and that the processing of this expression was made in a gestaltic way. They also showed that the recognition of the facial identity and the recognition of the expression were carried out by independent ways of processing.
