Fake Smile Test

[LucrativeSid]

Damnit, I only got 10 of them right! I could have forced myself to choose 10 fake ones and 10 real ones, but I wanted my answers to be genuine, and as a result I think that I thought about 15 of them were fake. I wasn't keeping track of my answers, I was just going one at a time.

[Athenian200]

11/20

I guessed four fake ones to be genuine, and five genuine ones to be fake. Yikes!

[toonia]

12/20

I got fixated on one critera - the manner of recovery from the smile. Those who could recover quickly didn't seem genuine. Those who had trouble recovering seemed genuine. I was consistent in using that and got 8 wrong. That's interesting.

[bluebell]

Originally Posted by bluebell

17/20

To be honest, I picked the genuine/fake in the still, before the video even started. And generally, you can tell from the eyes. crinkle = genuine

And I spent most of the time trying to work out how they'd managed to get a mix of genuine and fake smiles, and had a fairly robust theory by the end. Yay.

I've been thinking about this more (and I still find it's weird that most of the NFs are significantly worse at this than the NTs - I'm pretty sure that I'm worse than average at reading body language IRL).

I think the videos were collected by showing half of those people something funny (without them being told what this was for, and then getting their permission retrospectively to use the video for this test) without being told in advance what was about to happen. I think the fake smilers were just told to do a fake smile.

And I think this is why I could pick who was going to do the fake smile or the genuine smile before I hit the play button. (and I used the crinkle eyes = genuine to confirm my guess - I changed one or two of my original guesses on the basis of this)

Does this sound plausible?

[elfinchilde]

19/20.

Interesting test.

Note that cultural differences may play a part in how much a person gets correct. As what was discussed in whatever's blog quite a while back, that communication occurs on three levels: the spoken, unspoken, and body language.

For my culture: we're taught since a young age to be very, very observant of body language and the subtext beneath the spoken word. It is not expression of self, but observation of others that is inculcated into us as a skill.

This may hence be a factor in the scores.

edit: i missed the guy before the chinese girl. because i was trying to figure out if i thought he was cute or not.

[Tallulah]

GAH. I only got 11 out of 20, and I really thought I'd be good at this. I concentrated too much on the "sincerity" in the expression, rather than the nuts and bolts of the expression itself. Stupid, stupid!

[Beat]

18/20

I can sniff a fake.

[Rajah]

17/20

[CzeCze]

Originally Posted by nottaprettygal

I got 17/20. Sometimes the teeth were distracting.

I got 17/20 as well.

Though I honestly have no idea what the test is really asking for or what a 'genuine' smile is and ergo had no idea what I was really doing during the exam. I also scored well on the eyes test. Frankly, I'm impressed with myself now.

And maybe this will make me seem horribly deceptive and fake myself but don't most smiles have an element of artifice or agenda to them? You smile when you first meet people, you smile at your boss, you smile at clients, you smile at your date, you smile at children -- it doesn't mean smiling is always disengenuous in these instances, just that a smile is strategic in disarming people or projecting your benign intentions or is strictly conventional. It's a sign that says, "I come in peace and/or I like what I see".

I just kept on thinking, what if these people are trained actors and they are ordered to smile -- does that automatically mean their smile is genuine or do they have to smile in the right way to be considered 'convincing' (i.e. genuine) to get the part? You can totally train yourself to 'smile genuinely' by opening your mouth wide and crinkling your eyes as in fact, many actors, salespeople, politicians and the socially awkward do.

How did the researchers judge who is 'really smiling'?

I think it would be easier to judge people on how 'genuinely angry' they look or 'genuinely scowling'.

Originally Posted by elfinchilde

19/20.

Interesting test.

Note that cultural differences may play a part in how much a person gets correct. As what was discussed in whatever's blog quite a while back, that communication occurs on three levels: the spoken, unspoken, and body language.

For my culture: we're taught since a young age to be very, very observant of body language and the subtext beneath the spoken word. It is not expression of self, but observation of others that is inculcated into us as a skill.

Interesting -- I actually voted for the Asian woman as being genuine on principle (and was wrong). Just because the smile is small and forced and unenthusiastic doesn't mean it's fake, dammit! Hahaha.

Yeah, I think a couple east asian cultures are considered 'high context' which means you have to really understand a lot of unspoken cues and respond accordingly. It's also part of the focus on group harmony as it takes a lot of sensitivity to others and the group as a whole to make it work. If you don't get the cues and the unspoken rules, you will be forever considered gauche and out of step with your contemporaries.

Originally Posted by TheBeatGoesOn

18/20

I can sniff a fake.

Reassuring for a future cop! Next time someone gives you a hard time for being an SJ, just show them these results and how you bested them in empathic reads.

[ygolo]

17/20

I wonder what they meant by:
"[...] the eye cover fold - the fleshy part of the eye between the eyebrow and the eyelid - moves downwards and the end of the eyebrows dip slightly.
"

SPOILER ABOVE ^^