How the Emotions game works
Each round shows a photograph of a face. You pick the emotion you think it shows, and the next face appears. The task measures how you interpret and label facial expressions, and like every Arctic Shores task it opens with a guided tutorial.
It is reported to run for 50 faces with seven options. The expressions are reported to get less obvious as you go, and some are deliberately vague, with no option that fits exactly.
How to read a face quickly
Scan each face in the same order:
- Eyebrows first. Raised, pulled down and together, or angled up at the inner corners point to different emotions.
- Then the eyes: wide with white showing above the iris, narrowed in a glare, or relaxed.
- Then the nose and mouth: a wrinkled nose, lips stretched tight, or lips hanging slack and open.
- Name the emotion to yourself before you read the options, then find the closest match.
- If nothing fits exactly, choose the option that matches the strongest cue on the face.
Telling similar expressions apart
Fear and surprise both raise the eyebrows. In fear the brows are straighter and flatter, the upper eyelids lift higher so more white shows, and the lips are tense and stretched. In surprise the brows curve and the mouth hangs open and slack.
Anger and disgust both bring the face down. Anger lowers the brows and draws them together, with a glare and narrowed lips. Disgust shows most clearly as a wrinkled nose.
Sadness is easiest to confirm from the inner corners of the eyebrows, which angle upwards. Few people can make that movement on purpose, so it is a reliable sign.
Tips for the real Emotions task
- Go with your first clear read once you have checked brows, eyes and mouth. Second-guessing costs time.
- Expect some faces that match no option well. Pick the nearest and move on rather than stalling.
- Do the practice task first so the answer layout is familiar.
- On a phone, turn it to landscape as the assessment requires and raise the brightness so the eyes are clear.
- If reading faces is hard for you, request an adjustment before you start. Arctic Shores lists emotion recognition under its Autism option.
What your score means
Reading facial expressions is one of the task types in Arctic Shores’ 2026 candidate guide, but it does not say which dimensions the Emotions task shapes, and the report does not list a score for it. One emailed report covers the whole assessment, placing each “dimension” on a four-point scale against similar candidates who sat the same tasks.
The candidate guidance page instead shows each behaviour as a 1 to 10 spectrum, and says the report comes only when your employer chooses to send it. On the employer’s side, your results are compared with its picture of a good fit and summed up as one number from 1 to 100. Arctic Shores says there is no single way to pass, so a result at either end of a dimension is not a fail.
Practise Expressions on CogniPrep
Our Expressions game shows 50 faces drawn from 14 photographs, two per emotion, so faces repeat. You choose from seven labels: happy, sad, angry, fearful, surprised, disgusted and neutral, and the right one is always listed. Each face has 5 seconds and an unanswered face counts as wrong. You get a score out of 100, mostly for accuracy, with some weight for doing equally well across all seven emotions. Our photo set is small, so use it to drill the cues rather than to learn particular faces.