Abstract
Facial expression of emotion is a foundational aspect of social interaction and nonverbal communication. In this study, we use a computer-animated 3D facial tool to investigate how dynamic properties of a smile are perceived. We created smile animations where we systematically manipulated the smile's angle, extent, dental show, and dynamic symmetry. Then we asked a diverse sample of 802 participants to rate the smiles in terms of their effectiveness, genuineness, pleasantness, and perceived emotional intent. We define a "successful smile" as one that is rated effective, genuine, and pleasant in the colloquial sense of these words. We found that a successful smile can be expressed via a variety of different spatiotemporal trajectories, involving an intricate balance of mouth angle, smile extent, and dental show combined with dynamic symmetry. These findings have broad applications in a variety of areas, such as facial reanimation surgery, rehabilitation, computer graphics, and psychology.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | e0179708 |
| Journal | PloS one |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 2017 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2017 Helwig et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.