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Implications for Emotion: Using Anatomically Based Facial Coding to Compare Emoji Faces Across Platforms

Emoji faces, which are ubiquitous in our everyday communication, are thought to resemble human faces and aid emotional communication. Yet, few studies examine whether emojis are perceived as a particular emotion and whether that perception changes based on rendering differences across electronic pla...

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Autores principales: Fugate, Jennifer M. B., Franco, Courtny L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7947884/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33716870
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.605928
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author Fugate, Jennifer M. B.
Franco, Courtny L.
author_facet Fugate, Jennifer M. B.
Franco, Courtny L.
author_sort Fugate, Jennifer M. B.
collection PubMed
description Emoji faces, which are ubiquitous in our everyday communication, are thought to resemble human faces and aid emotional communication. Yet, few studies examine whether emojis are perceived as a particular emotion and whether that perception changes based on rendering differences across electronic platforms. The current paper draws upon emotion theory to evaluate whether emoji faces depict anatomical differences that are proposed to differentiate human depictions of emotion (hereafter, “facial expressions”). We modified the existing Facial Action Coding System (FACS) (Ekman and Rosenberg, 1997) to apply to emoji faces. An equivalent “emoji FACS” rubric allowed us to evaluate two important questions: First, Anatomically, does the same emoji face “look” the same across platforms and versions? Second, Do emoji faces perceived as a particular emotion category resemble the proposed human facial expression for that emotion? To answer these questions, we compared the anatomically based codes for 31 emoji faces across three platforms and two version updates. We then compared those codes to the proposed human facial expression prototype for the emotion perceived within the emoji face. Overall, emoji faces across platforms and versions were not anatomically equivalent. Moreover, the majority of emoji faces did not conform to human facial expressions for an emotion, although the basic anatomical codes were shared among human and emoji faces. Some emotion categories were better predicted by the assortment of anatomical codes than others, with some individual differences among platforms. We discuss theories of emotion that help explain how emoji faces are perceived as an emotion, even when anatomical differences are not always consistent or specific to an emotion.
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spelling pubmed-79478842021-03-12 Implications for Emotion: Using Anatomically Based Facial Coding to Compare Emoji Faces Across Platforms Fugate, Jennifer M. B. Franco, Courtny L. Front Psychol Psychology Emoji faces, which are ubiquitous in our everyday communication, are thought to resemble human faces and aid emotional communication. Yet, few studies examine whether emojis are perceived as a particular emotion and whether that perception changes based on rendering differences across electronic platforms. The current paper draws upon emotion theory to evaluate whether emoji faces depict anatomical differences that are proposed to differentiate human depictions of emotion (hereafter, “facial expressions”). We modified the existing Facial Action Coding System (FACS) (Ekman and Rosenberg, 1997) to apply to emoji faces. An equivalent “emoji FACS” rubric allowed us to evaluate two important questions: First, Anatomically, does the same emoji face “look” the same across platforms and versions? Second, Do emoji faces perceived as a particular emotion category resemble the proposed human facial expression for that emotion? To answer these questions, we compared the anatomically based codes for 31 emoji faces across three platforms and two version updates. We then compared those codes to the proposed human facial expression prototype for the emotion perceived within the emoji face. Overall, emoji faces across platforms and versions were not anatomically equivalent. Moreover, the majority of emoji faces did not conform to human facial expressions for an emotion, although the basic anatomical codes were shared among human and emoji faces. Some emotion categories were better predicted by the assortment of anatomical codes than others, with some individual differences among platforms. We discuss theories of emotion that help explain how emoji faces are perceived as an emotion, even when anatomical differences are not always consistent or specific to an emotion. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-02-25 /pmc/articles/PMC7947884/ /pubmed/33716870 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.605928 Text en Copyright © 2021 Fugate and Franco. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Fugate, Jennifer M. B.
Franco, Courtny L.
Implications for Emotion: Using Anatomically Based Facial Coding to Compare Emoji Faces Across Platforms
title Implications for Emotion: Using Anatomically Based Facial Coding to Compare Emoji Faces Across Platforms
title_full Implications for Emotion: Using Anatomically Based Facial Coding to Compare Emoji Faces Across Platforms
title_fullStr Implications for Emotion: Using Anatomically Based Facial Coding to Compare Emoji Faces Across Platforms
title_full_unstemmed Implications for Emotion: Using Anatomically Based Facial Coding to Compare Emoji Faces Across Platforms
title_short Implications for Emotion: Using Anatomically Based Facial Coding to Compare Emoji Faces Across Platforms
title_sort implications for emotion: using anatomically based facial coding to compare emoji faces across platforms
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7947884/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33716870
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.605928
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