Three hundred female college students participated in a study to determine whether viewing a prior sequence of photographs of emotional-facial expressions would influence their impressions of later expressions. Each subject was tested individually and shown one series of five separate photographs of varying facial expressions, one photograph at a time, and asked to freely label each expression shown and to rate the intensity of the expression on an 11-point scale ranging from "very weak" to "very strong." Eight of the sequences shown to subjects ended with a sad expression and ten sequences ended with a happy expression. Results showed that intensity ratings of both sad and happy final expressions were enhanced when preceded by a sequence of contrasting as opposed to similar or identical facial expressions. (FL)