By: Eliana Zhang
The Western-style emoticon is typically written from left to right as though the head is rotated 90° counterclockwise. In place of the eyes of a face stands a colon, an equals sign, the number 8, or the capital letter B, all of them sharing the fact that it is not them but rather the curve of the parenthesis “)” or “(“ that determines the emotion expressed by the face; in other words, the eyes act as a placeholder for the true expression of the mouth. A smile would therefore be expressed like this: “:)”
Eastern emoticons, however, differ not only in that they are not rotated sideways, but also in that their icons for smiling lack the typical smile’s curve completely. Wikipedia lists the below as the Eastern emoticons for joy:
In this, one can note a distinct absence of the upward turn of the lips that characterizes the smile. Since the smile is defined by such movement, a question arises: how could it be that people recognize “^_^” if the mouth itself is just a flat plank of neutrality? And to that, a simple answer arises: the Western exaggeration of the mouth had received an equivalent in the Eastern exaggeration of the eyes.
Aside from the zygomaticus major muscle that pulls the lip corners up in a “:)”, the smile portrayed in “^_^” also involves the pars lateralis around the eyelids. Due to the accompaniment of creases in the eyes as a result, it stands to reason that merely looking at the eyes would be enough to identify one. This is the defining characteristic of a Duchenne smile: “reaching the eyes.” You may recognize the phrase as one that expresses sincerity.
Why, then, you may ask, is the specification of a “Duchenne smile” needed in the first place? After all, isn’t calling it a “genuine smile” enough? Though the Duchenne smile is widely considered to be natural and involuntary, more recent research calls that into question, thus raising apprehensions about the validity of physical indications in identifying authentic feelings. Doubts first emerged in a 2009 investigation led by Eva Krumhuber and Antony Manstead, in which participants were able to produce the Duchenne smile whether they were actually exposed to amusing material or simply instructed to pose a smile. In more recent years, a 2016 study led by Sarah Gunnery has provided more evidence that undermines the Duchenne smile’s legitimacy; of its 96 student participants, 68 successfully imitated the Duchenne smile of a photograph presented to them. While this may seem like conclusive evidence that discredits the smile, the study had admittedly relied on staged emotion in neutral conditions. Thus, it has yet to be proven how easy it is for people to do the same while truly experiencing negative emotion, similar to how there is a difference in difficulty between lying by omission and saying a mistruth that would make Pinnochio’s nose grow. On the other hand, the lack of legitimate motivation to pull off a “genuine” smile may have resulted in the prevalence of the ability to fake Duchenne smiles actually being underestimated.
What is conclusive is that people can volitionally contract the pars lateralis muscle and produce a Duchenne smile even in the absence of genuine positive feeling. This, in turn, raises even more questions: if the forced production of the “natural” smile is possible, would it have the potential to fool the brain into believing a lie and change one’s emotions? Though more research has to be done into the forced conditions themselves, a study done by Robert Soussignan says yes for now; when its subjects produced a Duchenne smile even under the fake circumstances of the study, they reported more of a positive experience than those who didn’t. This proved that facial configurations may have powerful effects on, aside from being an expression of, a person’s emotions. Needless to say, the Duchenne smile would have to be studied more as psychologists uncover the truth behind the relationships between an expression and an emotion.
What did you learn?
What is the Duchenne smile? The Duchenne smile is one that, aside from pulling up the zygomaticus major muscle in the mouth of the “:)”, also contracts the pars lateralis around the eyelids to create eyes like the abstract smile portrayed in “^_^”. This is to say, of the three emoticons present in the title– ヽ(o^ ^o)ﾉ (｡0‿0｡) and╰(´︶`)╯–, 1 and 3 are Duchenne smiles that have the crinkled eyes ^ ^ and ´ `, whereas 2 has the colder, mysterious eyes of the uncrinkled 0 0. You should be able to identify a smile by its eyes if it is a Duchenne smile, hence why emoticon 1 lacks a mouth completely.
Can the Duchenne smile be faked? As you may have figured out from a year of trying to convey smiles through an opaque mask covering the lower half of your face, people can voluntarily contract the muscles that crinkle the eyelids and form the Duchenne smile that reaches the eyes. This has been proven in studies like those by Krumhuber and Manstead, or the 2016 one by Gunnery. What has yet to be proven is whether or not Duchenne smiles can be faked in the presence of explicitly contradicting emotion.
Citations:
Image Credit:
“List of Emoticons.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 16 Feb. 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emoticons.