ABSTRACT
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The smile is one of the most often expressed emotions during social interactions. It can be authentic, that is, associated with a joyful emotional state in the person expressing it, but it can also be false, that is, deliberately produced... more
The smile is one of the most often expressed emotions during social interactions. It can be authentic, that is, associated with a joyful emotional state in the person expressing it, but it can also be false, that is, deliberately produced in the absence of that emotional state in order to deceive one or more individuals (Ekman, 1993). Even though the fake smile very much resembles the authentic smile, it generally does not constitute the perfect simile. The fake smile more often has a certain degree of asymmetry than the authentic smile (Ekman, Hager, & Friesen, 1981) and it uses the cheek raiser action less often than with the authentic smile (Ekman, Friesen, & O'Sullivan, 1988; Frank, Ekman, & Friesen, 1993). This study looked at the knowledge that adults have of these differences as well as their perceptive ability to detect them. The visual stimuli presented to participants were prepared using the Facial Action Coding System (Ekman & Friesen, 1978). Results show that participants detected the differences between the two types of smile and that detection was better using smile asymmetry than with the cheek raiser action. Analysis of the use of response categories in the detection task indicated that participants underestimated the differences between smiles when they were different and that this tendency was more apparent with the cheek raiser detection method than for asymmetry detection. Participants also demonstrated a better knowledge of smile asymmetry than cheek raiser action. The knowledge gathered suggests that the ability of the receptor to judge smile authenticity is limited by perceptive factors. However, the mediation analyses that we conducted show the judging smile authenticity is not limited to simple perceptive detection of facial clues. Detecting facial clues is a necessary condition for correctly assessing smile authenticity, but it does not explain the variance in these assessments. We believe that this variance would be due more to the importance that participants give to facial clues. Finally, our results show that the capacity to detect differences between authentic and fake smiles is not easy to change. Participants who received modified information on changes of appearance linked to the two facial parameters were not more likely to detect the differences than participants who did not receive information.
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Résumé Le sourire est l'une des expressions émotionnelles les plus souvent émises au cours des interactions sociales. Il peut être authentique, c'est-à-dire être associé à un état émotionnel de joie chez la personne qui... more
Résumé Le sourire est l'une des expressions émotionnelles les plus souvent émises au cours des interactions sociales. Il peut être authentique, c'est-à-dire être associé à un état émotionnel de joie chez la personne qui l'émet, mais il peut aussi être faux, c'est-à-dire produit ...
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ABSTRACT
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ABSTRACT
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The smile is one of the most often expressed emotions during social interactions. It can be authentic, that is, associated with a joyful emotional state in the person expressing it, but it can also be false, that is, deliberately produced... more
The smile is one of the most often expressed emotions during social interactions. It can be authentic, that is, associated with a joyful emotional state in the person expressing it, but it can also be false, that is, deliberately produced in the absence of that emotional state in order to deceive one or more individuals (Ekman, 1993). Even though the fake smile very much resembles the authentic smile, it generally does not constitute the perfect simile. The fake smile more often has a certain degree of asymmetry than the authentic smile (Ekman, Hager, & Friesen, 1981) and it uses the cheek raiser action less often than with the authentic smile (Ekman, Friesen, & O'Sullivan, 1988; Frank, Ekman, & Friesen, 1993). This study looked at the knowledge that adults have of these differences as well as their perceptive ability to detect them. The visual stimuli presented to participants were prepared using the Facial Action Coding System (Ekman & Friesen, 1978). Results show that partici...
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The authors examined children's and adults'... more
The authors examined children's and adults' sensitivity to traces of anger in masking smiles by presenting participants with short video excerpts of smiles that differed by the intensity of an anger component. Fifty-two children, aged 6 to 12 years, and 26 adults were asked to judge whether a stimulus person was really happy or pretending to be happy. Six- and 7-year-old children were found to be sensitive to traces of anger, but less so than older children and adults. Researchers found evidence of explicit knowledge of the emotion hidden in masking smiles only in adult participants.
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The abilities of children to distinguish between facial patterns of fear and surprise were investigated. Sixty children, 5 to 10 years old, were administered a recognition task of facial expressions and were asked to identify the facial... more
The abilities of children to distinguish between facial patterns of fear and surprise were investigated. Sixty children, 5 to 10 years old, were administered a recognition task of facial expressions and were asked to identify the facial differences shown in these emotions. The recognition accuracy was found to be related to the amount of contrast between the facial patterns of
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The effects of Asian and Caucasian facial morphology were examined by having Canadian children categorize pictures of facial expressions of basic emotions. The pictures were selected from the Japanese and Caucasian Facial Expressions of... more
The effects of Asian and Caucasian facial morphology were examined by having Canadian children categorize pictures of facial expressions of basic emotions. The pictures were selected from the Japanese and Caucasian Facial Expressions of Emotion set developed by D. Matsumoto and P. Ekman (1989). Sixty children between the ages of 5 and 10 years were presented with short stories and an array of facial expressions, and were asked to point to the expression that best depicted the specific emotion experienced by the characters. The results indicated that expressions of fear and surprise were better categorized from Asian faces, whereas expressions of disgust were better categorized from Caucasian faces. These differences originated in some specific confusions between expressions.
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Abstract Facial expressions of fear and disgust have repeatedly been found to be less well recognized than those of other basic emotions by children. We undertook two studies in which we investigated the recognition and visual... more
Abstract Facial expressions of fear and disgust have repeatedly been found to be less well recognized than those of other basic emotions by children. We undertook two studies in which we investigated the recognition and visual discrimination of these expressions in school-age children. In ...
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ABSTRACT Few attempts have been made since the pioneer work of Ekman et al. (1980) to examine the development of the deliberate control of facial action units in children. We are reporting here two studies concerned with this issue. In... more
ABSTRACT Few attempts have been made since the pioneer work of Ekman et al. (1980) to examine the development of the deliberate control of facial action units in children. We are reporting here two studies concerned with this issue. In Study 1, we investigated children’s ability to activate facial action units involved in sadness and happiness expressions as well as combinations of these action units. In Study 2, we examined children’s ability to pose happiness and sadness with their face, without telling them which action unit to activate. The children who took part in this study were simply asked to portray happiness and sadness as convincingly as possible. The results of Study 1 indicate a strong developmental progression in children’s ability to produce elementary facial components of both emotions as well as in their ability to produce a combination of the elements in the case of happiness. In agreement with prior research in motor development, several non-target action units were also activated when children performed the task. Their occurrence persisted throughout childhood, indicating limitations in the finer motor control achieved by children across age. The results obtained in Study 2 paralleled those obtained in Study 1 in many respects, providing evidence that the children used the technique of deliberate action to pose the two target emotions. KeywordsEmotion–Facial expression–Motor control–Children
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The authors investigated the understanding of emotion dissimulation in school-age children. Sixty participants were read short stories in which a main character expressed an emotion or hid an emotion from other characters. The... more
The authors investigated the understanding of emotion dissimulation in school-age children. Sixty participants were read short stories in which a main character expressed an emotion or hid an emotion from other characters. The participants were asked to identify the emotion felt by the main characters and to indicate the facial expressions they would display. Then they were asked what emotions the main characters felt while they were displaying these expressions, and what the beliefs of the other story characters would be as to the emotion felt by the main characters. The results revealed that children from 5 to 6 years of age have a partial understanding of emotion dissimulation. They were accurate in finding the emotion felt by the main characters when questioned the first time. They were also accurate in choosing the expressions the main characters would display to hide their emotions. However, they were often inaccurate as to the felt emotions of the main characters when questioned the second time. Compared with 9- and 10-year-olds, the younger children had more difficulty understanding the simultaneous character of felt and displayed emotions. Five- and 6-year-olds were also less accurate than the older children when asked to indicate the beliefs of the other characters in stories where felt emotions were hidden.
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Résumé Le sourire est l'une des expressions émotionnelles les plus souvent émises au cours des interactions sociales. Il peut être authentique, c'est-à-dire être associé à un état émotionnel de joie chez la personne qui... more
Résumé Le sourire est l'une des expressions émotionnelles les plus souvent émises au cours des interactions sociales. Il peut être authentique, c'est-à-dire être associé à un état émotionnel de joie chez la personne qui l'émet, mais il peut aussi être faux, c'est-à-dire produit ...
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Cette étude examine les propositions théoriques d'Ekman et Friesen (1978a) et de Wiggers (1982) relatives aux signaux faciaux des émotions. Les prototypes proposés par ces auteurs sont présentés sur... more
Cette étude examine les propositions théoriques d'Ekman et Friesen (1978a) et de Wiggers (1982) relatives aux signaux faciaux des émotions. Les prototypes proposés par ces auteurs sont présentés sur diapositives à 74 sujets qui doivent évaluer l'intensité de l'émotion ou des émotions exprimées par le visage. Les résultats indiquent que la majorité des prototypes étudiés, à l'exception de ceux de
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1. The Duchenne marker has been proposed as a universal marker of smile authenticity. However, Elfenbein, Beaupré, Levesque, and Hess (2007) found that, whereas Canadians typically show the Duchenne marker when posing happiness, Gabonese... more
1. The Duchenne marker has been proposed as a universal marker of smile authenticity. However, Elfenbein, Beaupré, Levesque, and Hess (2007) found that, whereas Canadians typically show the Duchenne marker when posing happiness, Gabonese do not. We therefore investigated whether the Duchenne marker is perceived as a marker of smile authenticity by Gabonese and by Mainland Chinese living in Quebec, Canada. The results show that Gabonese do not use the Duchenne marker to assess smile authenticity at all. ...
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The authors investigated the extent to which children's understanding of the distinction between real... more
The authors investigated the extent to which children's understanding of the distinction between real and apparent emotions varied according to the motivation to hide emotions. Children, aged 6-7 and 10-11 years, were read stories designed to elicit either prosocial or self-protective motivated display rules and were asked to predict the facial expressions the protagonists would make to hide felt emotions. Children were found to understand the distinction between real and apparent emotions very well, independently of the type of motivation. Contrary to predictions, boys understood this distinction better than did girls when the motivation to hide positive emotions was prosocial. Children perceived neutralization as the most appropriate strategy to hide felt emotions, followed by masking.