Acting surprised: Comparing perceptions of different dynamic deliberate expressions

Abstract

People are accurate at classifying emotions from facial expressions but much poorer at determining if such expressions are genuine or deceptive. We explored if the method used by senders to produce the deceptive expression has an effect on the decoder’s ability to discriminate authenticity, drawing inspiration from two well-known acting techniques: the Stanislavski (internal) and Mimic method (external). We compared genuine surprise expressions, in response to a jack-in-the-box, to deceptive displays of senders who either focused on their affective feelings (internal) or their outward expression (external). Although decoders performed better than chance at discriminating the authenticity of all expressions, their accuracy was lower in classifying external surprise compared to internal surprise. Decoders also found it harder to discriminate external surprise from genuine surprise and were less confident in their decisions, perceiving these to be similarly intense but less genuine-looking. The findings suggest that senders are capable of producing genuine-looking expressions of emotions with minimal effort, especially by mimicking a genuine expression. Implications for research on emotion recognition are discussed.

Expression Authenticity: The Role of Genuine and Deliberate Displays in Emotion Perception

“…For instance, the encoding-decoding perspective provides the foundation for considering genuine (i.e., innate, involuntary responses) and deliberate (i.e., voluntary, communicative signals) expressions. It is important to note, though, that the argument for clear differences in expression authenticity ( Ekman et al, 1988 ) is neither consistent with empirical investigations ( Barrett et al, 2019 ) nor reflected in human judgments of facial expressions ( Zloteanu et al, 2020 , 2018 ). First, senders seem to possess the ability to produce genuine-looking displays of emotion ( Surakka and Hietanen, 1998 ; Gosselin et al, 2010 ; Gunnery et al, 2013 ).…”

“…For example, research finds no strong support for reliable muscles in either laboratory ( Krumhuber and Manstead, 2009 ) or naturalistic studies ( Fernández-Dols and Crivelli, 2013 ). Also, intensity relates more to the production method than to veracity ( Zloteanu et al, 2020 , 2018 ; Miller et al, 2020 ), and differences in the dynamic components are found to be subtle and varied between emotions ( Cohn and Schmidt, 2004 ; Namba et al, 2016 ).…”

“…Based on emotional congruence this would be considered as genuine (and potentially even spontaneous); yet, based on control it can be labeled as deceptive (and posed). Careful considerations should also be given to the type of expression as there are many ways of eliciting either spontaneous or posed displays ( Zloteanu et al, 2018 , 2020 ; Krumhuber et al, 2019 ).…”

“…These are used interchangeably or separately, and sometimes the same term has different definitions (see Gonçalves et al, 2018 ), making it difficult to know if two scholars pertain to the same phenomenon. For instance, in our research ( Zloteanu et al, 2020 , 2018 ) we define emotion classification accuracy as the ability to infer specific emotions from facial displays, and emotion authenticity discrimination as the ability to differentiate between spontaneous (genuine) and posed (deliberate) displays. By contrast, Buck et al (2017) use the exact opposite definitions which they label emotion categorization ability and emotion communication accuracy .…”

A Novel Test of the Duchenne Marker: Smiles After Botulinum Toxin Treatment for Crow’s Feet Wrinkles

“…Future research may benefit from examining potential limitations in the production or inhibition of the Duchenne marker in facial action tasks. Such work could shed new light on how different elicitation conditions might drive the reliability of this signal ( McCullough and Reed, 2016 ; see also Zloteanu et al, 2020 in the context of surprise expressions).…”