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About

Oliver Garrod is a researcher whose work sits at the intersection of cross-cultural psychology, emotion science, and human-robot interaction. Best known for his landmark 2016 study "Four not six: Revealing culturally common facial expressions of emotion" — now cited over 213 times — Garrod challenged the long-standing Darwinian consensus that six basic emotions are universally expressed across cultures, demonstrating instead that only four facial expressions enjoy genuine cross-cultural recognition. This finding reshaped foundational assumptions in affective science and anthropology alike. Building on this cultural sensitivity framework, Garrod extended his research into the emerging field of social robotics, exploring how robots can be equipped with psychologically valid, culturally appropriate facial expressions. His papers on reverse-engineering emotional expressions into social robots (2018, 2019) have collectively garnered over 75 citations, underscoring the real-world relevance of his work for human-robot communication in schools, hospitals, and homes. He has also investigated how conversational facial expressions vary across cultures and how three-dimensional facial features shape rapid social trait judgments such as trustworthiness and competence. Across these diverse strands, Garrod's research consistently bridges fundamental psychological science with meaningful technological and societal applications.