Data and stimuli of the experiment: Facial expressions in Nativity and Pieta paintings from 1037 to 1840

This study explores the development of depicting facial expressions in historical paintings depicting pivotal religious scenes: the Nativity (Birth of Christ) and the Pietà (Death of Christ). By examining artworks spanning the 11th to the 19th century, we assessed how do depictions evolve over time in terms of polarity, agreeability and ambiguity of individual faces and compared these with the perceived emotional intensity of overall pictorial scene.A total of 56 paintings were randomly selected for evaluation by 150 participants. Each participant categorized all visible faces into one of ten emotion categories—ranging from joy and love to sadness and anger—and then rated the painting’s overall emotional intensity. We quantified the degree of viewer agreement (agreeability), calculated a polarity measure (positive vs. negative emotion balance) and ambiguity (amount of chosen categories) at the face level. We also measured how participants perceived each painting’s emotional intensity.

本研究探讨了描绘核心宗教场景的历史画作中面部表情刻画的演变轨迹，所涉场景包括耶稣诞生（Nativity，基督降生）与圣殇（Pietà，基督之死）。通过检视11至19世纪的艺术作品，我们从单幅面部的情绪极性、观者共识度（agreeability）与模糊性三个维度，分析了面部表情刻画随时间的演化规律，并将其与整体画面场景的感知情绪强度进行对比。本研究共随机遴选56幅画作，邀请150名参与者参与评估。每名参与者需将画作中所有可见面部划分为十种情绪类别之一，涵盖喜悦、喜爱至悲伤、愤怒等情绪，并对画作的整体情绪强度进行评分。我们在面部层面量化了观者共识度，计算了情绪极性指标（正负情绪的平衡占比）与模糊性指标（所选情绪类别的数量），同时测算了参与者对每幅画作整体情绪强度的感知情况。