The Limpopo Facial Emotion Stimulus Set: Locally Validated Stimuli for Emotion Research in Sub-Saharan Africa

Most research on facial emotion recognition has focused on participants from a narrow range of Western cultures, thereby limiting its applicability to diverse populations. This study aimed to validate a culturally relevant subset of facial emotion photographs for use in regions of Sub-Saharan Africa. We selected 206 emotional expressions from models of Black African descent from the Racially Diverse Affective Expression (RADIATE) dataset (Conley et al., 2018). Fifty-four students from the University of Limpopo, South Africa, rated these stimuli. Using a 75% rater agreement threshold, we refined the set to 131 validated images, termed the Limpopo facial emotion stimulus set. This subset demonstrated high recognition of the intended facial expressions and strong consistency between raters. We present psychometric results describing these open-access stimuli, which we hope will be informative for other researchers. Our validation process underscores the importance of adapting materials to match the cultural and social context of the target population. The Limpopo facial emotion stimulus set enhances the ecological validity of emotion research in Sub-Saharan Africa, filling a gap in the availability of culturally appropriate cognitive and emotional assessment tools.