The study of the spontaneous expressions of blind individuals offers a unique opportunity to understand basic processes concerning the emergence and source of facial expressions of emotion. In this study, the authors compared the expressions of congenitally and noncongenitally blind athletes in the 2004 Paralympic Games with each other and with those produced by sighted athletes in the 2004 Olympic Games. The authors also examined how expressions change from 1 context to another. There were no differences between congenitally blind, noncongenitally blind, and sighted athletes, either on the level of individual facial actions or in facial emotion configurations. Blind athletes did produce more overall facial activity, but these were isolated to head and eye movements. The blind athletes' expressions differentiated whether they had won or lost a medal match at 3 different points in time, and there were no cultural differences in expression. These findings provide compelling evidence that the production of spontaneous facial expressions of emotion is not dependent on observational learning but simultaneously demonstrates a learned component to the social management of expressions, even among blind individuals.

Emotions evolved as a rapid and coordinated response system that allows humans to quickly and efficiently respond to events that affect their welfare (Darwin, 1872/1998; Ekman, 2003; Lazarus, 1991). Facial expressions are part of that response system. The facial musculature has over 40 independent actions that can occur, which results in an extremely large number of possible expressions. But of this large potential repertoire, strong evidence now exists that a small number of specific facial configurations are universally and discretely produced when emotions are elicited...