Surprise! It’s one of the more showy emotions, along with wonder, joy, — and sorrow.
One dictionary defines surprise as “An unexpected or astonishing event, fact, or thing.” Catching natural expressions of surprise on-camera is – like surprise itself – generally unexpected.
Children express surprise fairly often. Not much surprises us anymore once we are adults. And when it does, we generally don’t like it. One complex and philosophical online document that analyzes surprise begins with the statement: ” ‘Surprise’ is the automatic reaction to a mismatch.”
I would take that one step further and say surprise is the automatic reaction to a mismatch between the expected and the unexpected.
As adults, we have watched tops spin many times before and just would not react like this:
And we already understand cause and effect and the laws of gravity. But reading the emotions on children’s faces as they discover these for the first time never grows old!
