The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals allows cultural factors only an auxiliary role in the shaping of expression. This biological emphasis leads to an appreciation of the universal nature of expression, with its implication of a single origin for the entire human species; and Darwin points to the significance of emotional communication with children in their psychological development. Darwin sought out the opinions of some leading British psychiatrists, notably James Crichton-Browne, in the preparation of the book which forms his main contribution to psychology. Amongst the innovations with this book are Darwin's circulation of a questionnaire (probably inspired by his cousin, Francis Galton) in his preparatory
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals with engravings of the Darwin family's domestic pets by the zoological illustrator T. W. Wood as well as work by the artists Briton Rivière, Joseph Wolf and A.D. May. It also included portraits by the Swedish photographer Oscar Rejlander (1813–1875), anatomical diagrams by Sir Charles Bell (1774–1842) and Friedrich Henle (1809–1885), as well as illustrational quotations from the "Mécanisme de la physionomie humaine" (1862) by the French neurologist Duchenne de Boulogne (1806–1875). As a result of his domestic psychology experiments, Darwin reduced the number of commonly observed emotions from Duchenne's calculation of more than sixty facial expressions, to just six