Abstract Face context effect refers to the effects of emotional information from the surrounding context on the face perception. Numerous studies investigated the face context effects by exploring the effect of suprathreshold or subthreshold emotional context on the perception of neutral face, but no consistent conclusions have been drawn. Hence, we explored cognitive mechanisms underlying face context effects by comparing the effects of suprathreshold and subthreshold emotional contexts on neutral face perception. In Experiment 1, we investigated the mechanisms underlying the valence-based face context effect by comparing the effect between suprathreshold (1a) and subthreshold (1b) emotional contexts with different valences on neutral faces. In Experiment 2, we investigated the mechanisms underlying the type-base face context effect by comparing the effect between suprathreshold (2a) and subthreshold (2b) emotional contexts with different emotional types on neutral faces. The results of experiment 1 revealed significant differences in valence ratings of neutral faces under suprathreshold and subthreshold emotional contexts with different valences. The results of experiment 2 showed that the emotional-dimension ratings of neutral faces was significantly different under suprathreshold emotion-specific contexts but not subthreshold emotion-specific contexts. We concluded that the mechanism of the valence-based face context effect is different from that of the type-based face context effect. The former is more automatic, and the latter is more non-automatic.