One of my favorite sites for interactive science content is the BBC. We looked at their supertaster site earlier, and tonight I had a lot of fun with their “fake smile” detector test. This test is based on Paul Ekman’s analysis of facial expression. Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to watch 20 videos and decide which are showing people with genuine or fake smiles.
So how did I do? I guess I’m a sucker for fake smiles–I only got 13 out of 20 correct, and 4 of my errors were fake smiles that I thought were genuine. One of the interesting things I noticed is that most of the people who fooled me were of a different race or ethnicity than I am. Sounds like some cross-cultural research in this area would be fun. Mr. F, as expected, did better–16/20, and all but one were fake smiles he guessed would be genuine.
I’m also curious about the first slide in the test. They ask you if you are optimistic or pessimistic, and how confident are you in your ability to judge fake smiles. At the end, they ask you which feature you thought was most important in judging smiles. I said “eyes.” But they don’t give you any feedback on these responses. When time permits, I’ll do some digging on Ekman’s work and see what I can find on these variables.
Try the test yourself, and let me know how you do. There’s also a nifty test on what disgusts you, but don’t do this while you’re snacking.
I’m not seeing many smiles, fake or otherwise, among the San Francisco 49ers….as they are losing pretty badly right now to Seattle on Monday Night Football.
17 Comments
emilyz · November 12, 2007 at 10:52 pm
I took this quiz after reading how you judged wrong for those with different ethnicities. I was so conscious of this that when I got to people with different ethnicities from my own I was almost guessing, That totally swayed me. In the end, though, I only got three wrong and only one was a different race from me.
It would be interesting to have a group take this quiz and tell them first that it is easiest to distinguish between fake and real smiles for those of your own ethnicity and another group who just takes it without being told anything. I wonder what would happen?
TNguyen · November 12, 2007 at 11:58 pm
I actually scored like Mr. F and got 16/20. However, my wrong guesses were half genuine and half fake. I was surprised that one fake smile seemed very genuine to me. I guess it just contributes to the saying that look are deceiving. I also put that people’s eyes were what helped me distinguish against a fake or genuine smile. I tend to look at people’s eyes a lot when I conversate because I think the eyes lead the way to a person’s soul. It’s interesting how much eyes can tell you about a person.
alyssa · November 13, 2007 at 12:53 am
surprisingly, i got 17 out of 20 correct which was encouraging because i do feel that i can spot real/unreal smiles, but i was nvervous nonetheless because of soem other scores. i think some of the experiences i read helped me just a bit. it was interesting to me to see how i rated these smiles: i don’t think it was one consistent attribute that i relied upon, but i really judged according to how the overall person looked. if they seemed like a creepy person, i think i was much less likely to rate them as giving a real smile, but on the other hand those who seemed meek, with a smaller smile i saw as more genuine just because of what i thought they were like. i wonder how much, if any that affects the kind of smile people portray.
Laura Freberg · November 13, 2007 at 11:32 am
I was trying to match the timing of the eye reaction to the timing of the smile. Maybe I was “overthinking,” because I’m very familiar with Paul Ekman’s research. I might try it again with a more spontaneous attitude.
Of the 4 Mr. F missed, all were women. He said that the Asian woman evoked feelings of sympathy, which interfered with his assessment of how “real” her smile was. This is a very complicated area of study, definitely.
cat tran · November 13, 2007 at 9:43 pm
In one of my other classes we touched bases on cross-cultural identity problems relating to identifying criminals. Witnesses are more likely to make mistakes when identifying suspects of a different race. It is most likely to occur because of our exposure to different races and our brain’s ability to recognize facial cues. It makes sense if we haven’t been exposed to certain races, it would be a little more difficult to identify certain characteristics, because there are biological differences in the facial structure. But it’s important also to keep in mind that if a person grew up surrounded in a variety of cultures and races, then there wouldn’t be as likely of a cross-cultural identity problem. very interesting stuff!
nichol.myers · November 14, 2007 at 12:14 pm
I scored 16 out of 20– unfortunately, I move so quickly through everything, I didn’t realize there was a “play” button for at least the first 4. I missed 3 out of the first 4 — I’d like to think that’s why. Like you I missed smiles I thought were genuine that were really fake.
This is some interesting research, but I find that a genuine smile will sometimes “catch” me in just the right way, and really makes my day! I also said “eyes” in the last question on the test. By the way, did you know that it takes more muscles to frown than to smile? My mom always told me that so please don’t burst my bubble if she’s wrong. ha ha…
Bummer on the 49er’s. They’re one of my teams!
jsaqqa · November 14, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Like, Mr. F I also scored a 16. Yet, what I find most surprising and kind of sad was that out of the 4 I missed 3 of them were male. As a female I would hope I could spot a fake/ genuine smile from the opposite sex… I just hope I would be better at deceivering one’s emotions when looking at them in person rather than a video clip.
c.busso · November 14, 2007 at 10:23 pm
I only missed 4 but they were all towards the beginning. 2 males and 2 females. I feel like i caught on as I went. I paid attention to the end of the video and could kind of tell by how their face went back to normal. Also, I assumed that the people who were laughing were watching something funny to get a real smile. Then, I assumed that the fake smile people were just told to smile and given no stimuli. Now let’s use this in my own life.
Rebecca Burnside · November 14, 2007 at 11:53 pm
I wonder if there’s a correlation between one specific gender and the successful deceit of a false perception. Could one sex be better at the false smile than another?
kbushman · November 15, 2007 at 11:42 am
This test was so interesting! I scored a 16/20 and I was surprised because I thought that I had missed alot more. I guess gut instincts are almost always right. I missed two thinking that genuines were fake and 2 thinking that fakes were genuine. Interestingly, along with your cross-cultural idea, all the ones that I missed were caucasians. I don’t really know how to interpret that but 3/4 that I missed were males which is not good because they are the ones that I need to be able to read the best! I looked mostly at the eyes as well to decide my decisions, but dang, some people just mask it so well!
KatyL · November 15, 2007 at 3:54 pm
I thought I would do much better on this test, I only got 11/20! I was trying to pay close attention to the end of the clip, I thought the faster the people went back to normal faces the less likely their smile was authentic, but I guess this was not the bect way to take this test. I feel like I am usually good at reading people, if I want to be! The women tricked me the most, and I seemed to have passed judgement based on the looks of the person… before they even smiled.
L.Brightwell · November 16, 2007 at 10:53 am
I took the test and got a 15 out of 20. I agree that looking at the eyes helped me determine whether or not the smile was fake. I also felt that you could sort of tell about the smile based on how their faces ended up when they were done smiling. You could tell that it seemed that those that displayed genuine smiles had a little bit harder time finishing the smile at the end where as those that were forcing the smile easily turned it off. I was fascinated to read at the end of the test that the forced smiles actually use different facial muscles than those of a true smile. I was also interested to learn about the things to look for when determining whether or not a smile is fake like the shape of the folds of the eyes and whether or not they turn down, etc.
Laura Freberg · November 16, 2007 at 12:49 pm
It seems to me that a question like this could keep a researcher busy for years–so many variables, so little time. I think all of you are doing quite well! I kind of tensed up knowing it was a test (yes, I’m still working on that test anxiety thing!), and I wonder how this compares to the “normal” assessment we make on a daily basis.
I would be interested to see how we’d do with outstanding actors and actresses, say a Sir Laurence Olivier or a Meryl Streep? I bet they could fool a whole lot of people!
R.Nickles · November 18, 2007 at 1:27 am
I got 16 out of 20! I think they were all ones that were fake but I said they were genuine… I think it was the squinting of the eyes that made it easier to judge for most people, but often if I watched their expression change after they smiled, it appeared to give away their genuity or lack thereof. Sometimes, their mouth would turn down afterward, which seemed to be times when they were faking a smile… I do agree that it would be difficult to judge a smile on Meryl Streep though!
bldrysdale · February 6, 2008 at 12:52 pm
I did horrible on this quiz. I decided to judge off of how quickly they could turn off the smile and whether or not they seemed to give off a little chuckle. These were not indicators of if a person was fake smiling or not. I also found it harder to do for other cultures and males. I would not be surprised if actors and actresses were much better at faking their smiles. It would be interesting to take what was learned from this study and apply it to videos of different historical figures.
emonome | The Fake Smile Detection Test · November 12, 2007 at 10:36 pm
[…] Took the test after Laura mentioned it on her blog. Score: 11 out of 20; not bad, I guess. Damn the twinkle in the fake smilers’ eyes. I went purely with the twinkle. Eh. So now…what if I keep making the wrong 9 guesses all my life? I mean one’s gotta be able to tell a genuine smile from a ‘fuck you’ smile. I’m on to you Wal-Mart smiley face. […]
opendesk · November 12, 2007 at 10:39 pm
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