Can You Spot A Fake Smile?

Michael,

Thanks for your thoughts. Meriam-Webster says a smile is:

"a change of facial expression involving a brightening of the eyes and an upward curving of the corners of the mouth with no sound and less muscular distortion of the features than in a laugh that may express amusement, pleasure, tender affection, approval, restrained mirth, irony, derision, or any of various other emotions"

The above definition supports your idea of including the eyes.

More Webster:

genuine (adjective) - "sincerely and honestly felt or experienced : not forced but arising naturally : not feigned, factitious, or hypocritical"

fake (verb) - "to create the illusion of the reality or existence of : cause (something inexistent) to appear as real or existing : CONCOCT, FABRICATE, SIMULATE, PRETEND"

These definitions also tend to support your definitions of fake as "not spontaneous, voluntary" and Genuine as "spontaneous, involuntary".

Armed with the above definitions, yours and the dictionary's, I went back to the site and watched each person smile with a piece of paper covering their face below the eyes. In other words, I watched the eyes ONLY. I looked for what appeared to be "spontaneous change" of the eyes, with that change ADDING something to the eyes . . . a "twinkle" or a "brightening" or what have you.

If you think about it, the turning up of the corners of the mouth is irrelevant as a test, because ALL smiles . . . genuine and fake . . . have that characteristic.

The result of this experiment: 18 out of 20 CORRECT!

In retrospect, I did see some change in a couple of the smiler's eyes, but I didn't deem it "enough" to warrant the label "genuine". I have no doubt that the ones whose eyes remained totally flat (no change) are certain fakers.

My conclusion: I suspect that with practice one could develop the skill of detecting genuine vs fake smiles with 100% accuracy. In other words, one could become an "SMILE EXPERT"!

However, I'm not sure of the value of this skill. A couple of the most wretched scoundrels I've ever known were excellent actors, able to turn on the smiles and the charm at will. Actually, any actor/actress of any skill can generate a "genuine" smile, including the brightening of the eyes, on demand. But I think you can catch the less skillful scoundrels every time by watching their eyes!

Originally Posted by MichaelRoss

Now the next question is... can you spot Fake Laughing? Spend some time in the human theater and Listen to the Laughter - anywhere were Groups of people gather, and even in the workplace. And do YOU (generic you) participate in the Fake Laughter Trend?
Michael Ross

Yes, I can spot a fake laugh a mile away. There are certain so-called "funny" disc jockeys who employ one or two side kicks whose entire job, it seems, is to "laugh" at the DJ's lame jokes. Fake, fake, fake! Then there's the sitcoms on TV with their canned "laugh" tracks. Sick! Maybe TV is turning the laughter of the entire population into a laugh track?

---- Hugh