Abstract
When evaluating the smiles of other people (regarding amusement, authenticity, spontaneity, or intensity), perceivers typically rely on Orbicularis oculi activity that causes wrinkles around a target’s eyes. But does this so-called Duchenne marker also impact more generalized judgments of person characteristics (e.g., regarding a target’s attractiveness, intelligence, dominance, and trustworthiness)? To address this issue, the current study asked participants to provide the above smile evaluations and person judgments for a series of Duchenne and non-Duchenne smiles. The results showed that smile evaluations uniformly increased during Duchenne marker presence. The marker’s effect on person judgments, in contrast, was judgment dependent. While attractiveness, dominance and intelligence ratings showed the expected enhancement, trustworthiness ratings remained unaffected by the facial cue of interest. The findings suggest that the Duchenne marker’s role as a cue of social relevance during target perception depends on the type of person inference under consideration.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Ambadar, Z., Cohn, J. F., & Reed, L. I. (2009). All smiles are not created equal: morphology and timing of smiles perceive as amused, polite and embarrassed/nervous. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 33, 17–34.
Bernstein, M. J., Sacco, D. F., Brown, C. M., Young, S. G., & Claypool, H. M. (2010). A preference for genuine smiles following social exclusion. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 196–199.
Bernstein, M. J., Young, S. G., Brown, C. M., Sacco, D. F., & Claypool, H. M. (2008). Adaptive responses to social exclusion: Social rejection improves detection of real and fake smiles. Psychological Science, 19, 981–983.
Duchenne de Boulogne, C.-B. (1862). The mechanism of human facial expression. Jules Renard.
Ekman, P. (1990). Duchenne and facial expression of emotion. In A. Cuthbertson (Ed. and Transl.) The mechanism of human facial expression by G.-B. Duchenne de Boulogna (pp. 270-284). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Ekman, P. (1994). Strong evidence for universals in facial expressions: A reply to Russell’s mistaken critique. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 268–287.
Ekman, P., Davidson, R. J., & Friesen, W. V. (1990). The Duchenne smile: Emotional expression and brain physiology: II. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 342–353.
Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1982). Felt, false, and miserable smiles. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 6, 238–258.
Ekman, P., Friesen, W. V., & Hager, J. C. (2002). Facial action coding system [CD-Rom]. Salt Lake City, UT: Nexus.
Ekman, P., Friesen, W. V., & O’Sullivan, M. (1988). Smiles when lying. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 414–420.
Frank, M. G., Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1993). Behavioral markers and recognizability of the smile of enjoyment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 83–93.
Gosselin, P., Perron, M., Legault, M., & Campanella, P. (2002). Children’s and adults’ knowledge of the distinction between enjoyment and nonenjoyment smiles. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 26, 83–108.
Haidt, J., & Keltner, D. (1999). Culture and facial expression: Open-ended methods find more expressions and a gradient of recognition. Cognition and Emotion, 13, 225–266.
Harris, C. R., & Alvarado, N. (2005). Facial expressions, smile types, and self-report during humour, tickle, and pain. Cognition and Emotion, 19, 655–669.
Hassin, R., & Trope, Y. (2000). Facing faces: Studies on the cognitive aspects of physiognomy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 837–852.
Hess, U., Kappas, A., McHugo, G. J., Kleck, R. E., & Lanzetta, J. T. (1989). An analysis of the encoding and decoding of spontaneous and posed smiles: The use of facial electromyography. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 13, 121–137.
Hess, U., & Kleck, R. E. (1990). Differentiating emotion elicited and deliberate emotional facial expressions. European Journal of Social Psychology, 20, 369–385.
Izard, C. (1971). The face of emotion. New York: Appleton Century Crofts.
Johnston, L., Miles, L. K., & Macrae, C. N. (2010). Why are you smiling at me? Social functions of enjoyment and nonenjoyment smiles. British Journal of Social Psychology, 49, 107–127.
Keltner, D. (1995). Signs of appeasement: Evidence for the distinct displays of embarrassment, amusement, and shame. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 441–454.
Keltner, D., & Bonanno, G. A. (1997). A study of laughter and dissociation: Distinct correlates of laughter and smiling during bereavement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 687–702.
Krumhuber, E., & Manstead, A. S. R. (2009). Can Duchenne smiles be feigned? New evidence on felt and false smiles. Emotion, 9, 807–820.
Krumhuber, E., Manstead, A. S. R., & Kappas, A. (2007). Temporal aspects of facial displays in person and expression perception: the effects of smile dynamics, head-tilt, and gender. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 31, 39–56.
Mehu, M., Little, A. C., & Dunbar, R. I. M. (2007). Duchenne smiles and the perception of generosity and sociability in faces. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, 5, 183–196.
Miles, L. K. (2009). Who is approachable? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 262–266.
Miles, L., & Johnston, L. (2007). Detecting happiness: Perceiver sensitivity to enjoyment and nonenjoyment smiles. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 31, 259–275.
Niedenthal, P. M., Mermillod, M., Maringer, M., & Hess, U. (2010). The simulation of smiles (SIMS) model: embodied simulation and the meaning of facial expression. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33, 417–480.
Oosterhof, N. N., & Todorov, A. (2008). The functional basis of face evaluation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 105, 11087–11092.
Owren, M. J., & Bachorowski, J.-A. (2003). Reconsidering the evolution of nonlinguistic communication: The case of laughter. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 27, 183–200.
Schmidt, K. L., Ambadar, Z., Cohn, J. F., & Reed, L. I. (2006). Movement differences between deliberate and spontaneous facial expressions: Zygomaticus major action in smiling. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 30, 37–52.
Schmidt, K. L., Bhattacharya, S., & Denlinger, R. (2009). Comparison of deliberate and spontaneous facial movement in smiles and eyebrow raises. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 33, 35–45.
Skinner, M., & Mullen, B. (1991). Facial asymmetry in emotional expression: A meta-analysis of research. British Journal of Social Psychology, 30, 113–124.
Thibault, P., Gosselin, P., Brunel, M.-L., & Hess, U. (2009). Children’s and adolescents’ perception of the authenticity of smiles. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 102, 360–367.
Todorov, A., Said, C. P., Engell, A. D., & Oosterhof, N. N. (2008). Understanding evaluation of faces on social dimensions. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12, 455–460.
Tottenham, N., Tanaka, J., Leon, A. C., McCarry, T., Nurse, M., Hare, T. A., et al. (2009). The NimStim set of facial expressions: judgments from untrained research participants. Psychiatry Research, 15, 242–249.
Young, A. W., Hellawell, D., & Hay, D. C. (1987). Configurational information in face perception. Perception, 16, 747–759.
Zebrowitz, L. A., & Montepare, J. M. (2008). First impressions from facial appearance cues. In N. Ambady & J. J. Skowronski (Eds.), First impressions. New York: The Guilford Press.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by a postdoctoral grant from the University of Louvain and the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research. We thank Lynden Miles and Nim Tottenham for the permission to display the faces in Figure 1.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Quadflieg, S., Vermeulen, N. & Rossion, B. Differential Reliance on the Duchenne Marker During Smile Evaluations and Person Judgments. J Nonverbal Behav 37, 69–77 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-013-0147-z
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-013-0147-z