June 13, 2007

• Faking It

  Andrew Sullivan has a link to a smile test:  can you tell the real smiles from the fake ones?

  In fact, just a couple of months ago when my dear friends Salina and Doug were here with their children, Simini and Xander, we went to the San Francisco Exploratorium, where they had a series of photographs of people, photographed twice, one depicting a genuine smile and one depicting a fake smile. You could lift the pictures and it'd tell you which was which.  At the end of the exhibit, it explained that a genuine smile causes certain muscles to activate that fake smiles don't, apparently activating muscles that are otherwise not something we learn to control at a conscious level. 

  About a year or so ago, I read a book by Malcom Gladwell (he of The Tipping Point) called Blink, which I think I mentioned here on the blog at some point in the past.  Among other things he turns up in Blink's exploration of snap-judgement, "gut" reactions, he talks to a professor at UCSF who specializes in reading facial expressions, and not merely reading them, but serious empirical evaluation on facial expressions of people from around the world and different cultures, from cannibals in Africa, to Noh actors, to just plain-Janes on the street in America.  In fact, much to my delight, this professor is actually mentioned at the end of the test on the BBC site!

  Scientists distinguish between genuine and fake smiles by using a coding system called the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), which was devised by Professor Paul Ekman of the University of California and Dr Wallace V. Friesen of the University of Kentucky.

  Professor Ekman's ability to make certain pronouncements based on faces alone is astonishing.  He's developed a whole numeric system of muscle groups and facial muscle activations (the aforementioned FACS) and has himself practiced activating muscles consciously that most people don't or can't.  He demonstrates them to the author with great descriptions (e.g. "This is a number three and seven, usually used by western people to express pleasant surprise." "This is a number five and two, which isn't really used by anybody except Japanese actors in certain Kyōgen plays."), and explains how they discovered whole facial muscle groups that they couldn't, even with practice, control consciously without artificial electronic stimulation.

  I was suprisingly good at figuring out the fake smiles from the real ones, even without the hint the exhibit provided. So, the test Sullivan linked to wasn't a new concept for me, but the format was.  At the Exploratorium exhibit, you could study still shots of the smiles side by side.  Most of the time, it was pretty easy for me to tell, with the exception of that one guy, who barely had any affect whatsoever, or at least nearly no discernable difference between fake and genuine and, probably, neutral.  The test Sullivan links to is a video test, with short videos of actual people smiling.  You can only play the videos once, though -- the control to play it deactivates after it plays once, so you get only the one impression.

  I remain surprisingly good, even with this sample.  Out of 20 smiles, I identified 19 correctly.  The one I didn't was a hard call (his face is kind of lopsided and he's got tiny eyes), and I erred on the side of generosity.  I thought most of them were pretty easy.  The trick really is in the eyes, although I'm still not entirely sure what little flap of skin is supposed to be activated by a real smile.  But apparently, I still "get" it on some level when asked to make the distinction.

  Terry Pratchett often will effectively use this awareness of the role of the eyes in a real smile to good effect in his writing, where he talks about grins "that don't touch his eyes," or "It was a smile, in that the corners of her mouth turned up at the ends," and similar observations that are both funny and accurate depictions of a fake smile, or a smile that has nothing to do with mirth, but possibly grim satisfaction at seeing someone get their comeuppance.

  So, check out the test if you get a chance and see how you do.

  • 2:33 pm
  • 3 Comments