The Facial Action Coding System for Characterization of Human Affective Response to Consumer Product-Based Stimuli: A Systematic Review

To characterize human emotions, researchers have increasingly utilized Automatic Facial Expression Analysis (AFEA), which automates the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) and translates the facial muscular positioning into the basic universal emotions. There is broad interest in the application of FACS for assessing consumer expressions as an indication of emotions to consumer product-stimuli. However, the translation of FACS to characterization of emotions is elusive in the literature. The aim of this systematic review is to give an overview of how FACS has been used to investigate human emotional behavior to consumer product-based stimuli. The search was limited to studies published in English after 1978, conducted on humans, using FACS or its action units to investigate affect, where emotional response is elicited by consumer product-based stimuli evoking at least one of the five senses. The search resulted in an initial total of 1,935 records, of which 55 studies were extracted and categorized based on the outcomes of interest including (i) method of FACS implementation; (ii) purpose of study; (iii) consumer product-based stimuli used; and (iv) measures of affect validation. Most studies implemented FACS manually (73%) to develop products and/or software (20%) and used consumer product-based stimuli that had known and/or defined capacity to evoke a particular affective response, such as films and/or movie clips (20%); minimal attention was paid to consumer products with low levels of emotional competence or with unknown affective impact. The vast majority of studies (53%) did not validate FACS-determined affect and, of the validation measures that were used, most tended to be discontinuous in nature and only captured affect as it holistically related to an experience. This review illuminated some inconsistencies in how FACS is carried out as well as how emotional response is inferred from facial muscle activation. This may prompt researchers to consider measuring the total consumer experience by employing a variety of methodologies in addition to FACS and its emotion-based interpretation guide. Such strategies may better conceptualize consumers' experience with products of low, unknown, and/or undefined capacity to evoke an affective response such as product prototypes, line extensions, etc.