For a split second, his face contorts with—shock? Joy? During intense emotional experiences, there’s a fleeting moment when expressions of pleasure and pain are hard to distinguish. In fact, others read intense emotion more effectively by looking at a person’s body language than by watching his facial expressions, a new study suggests.

 

Most studies of facial cues rely on a set of stylized, recognizable expressions—perhaps made by actors in photographs. The actors make expressions meant to be obvious enough to translate across cultures: