A database of facial expressions in younger, middle-aged, and older women and men

FACES is a set of images of naturalistic faces of 171 younger (n = 58), middle-aged (n = 56), and older (n = 57) women and men displaying each of six facial expressions: neutrality, sadness, disgust, fear, anger, and happiness.

The database comprises two sets of pictures per person and per facial expression, resulting in a total of 2,052 images. It was developed between 2005 and 2007 by Ulman Lindenberger, Natalie Ebner, and Michaela Riediger at the Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany.

Ebner, N., Riediger, M., & Lindenberger, U. (2010). FACES—A database of facial expressions in young, middle-aged, and older women and men: Development and validation. Behavior research Methods, 42, 351-362. doi:10.3758/BRM.42.1.351

The FACES Software was developed by the Max Planck Digital Library in the context of the eSciDoc Project.

Further information:

Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Center for Lifespan Psychology, Berlin, Germany

For questions regarding the FACES Database, please contact the FACES technical agent.