SMILE Esther Chung

smile

by Esther Chung

WRIT 1133: Writing & Research | Professor David Riche

“I WONDER WHAT THEY ARE THINKING?”

Almost everyone has had this thought run through their head. I am no different. Wanting to understand what the other person is thinking or feeling—it’s truly impossible to tell.

I remember my teacher in elementary school looking down on me, the corner of her mouth turned downwards, her eyebrows turned upwards, as I extended my hand out to her, a little lizard in my palm. At the time, I did not understand why she was slowly inching away from me while trying to get me to drop the lizard. I did not understand why her face was contorted in such a weird manner. I did not understand that emotion. i

The corners of their lips turned up, their eyes shifting a little bit, revealing an almost moon-like shape; there are no wrinkles in the corners of their eyes. Their pupils were not contracted, nor were they shaped like the moon. No reflection glinting off them; they almost looked like dark stones.

The human face has forty-three muscles. Forty-three muscles to make seven emotions, yet there are thousands of combinations to convey them. The seven universal emotions ii are classified as disgust, anger, fear, sadness, happiness, surprise, and contempt. iii Despite this, the English language has many different ways to describe emotions. Happiness can be described as cheerful, merry, joyful,

grinning, radiant, upbeat, chipper…the list goes on and on. Yet, biologically, a smile can be described very simply… • The zygomaticus major and minor pull up the corners of the mouth. • The orbicularis oculi cause the eye to crinkle. • The levator labii superioris pulls up the corner of the lip and nose. • The levator anguli oris helps to raise the angle of the mouth. • The risorius also pulls the corners of mouth to the side of the face. …finally forming a smile.

The eyes widened, radiating intensity, her mouth bunching inwards. Lips pressed together. The corners of her mouth stayed still. Her eyebrows were pulled together, almost as if attached by a string. The inner part of her brows came downward as if wanting to meet her eyes.

Humans communicate non-verbally all the time. A smile to someone you pass on the street. A well-timed eyebrow raised to a friend across the room. A glance to the person sitting too close to you. While talking to colleagues and friends, our faces can show things that our voices do not. Emotional intelligence allows us as humans to understand what another person may be feeling; it also allows us to empathize. As the Roman politician Cicero puts it: “The face is a picture of the mind with the eyes as its interpreter.”

His mouth was turned downward ever so slightly, the bottom lip jutting out. His eye brows were raised up, but the ends were turned down. His eyes appeared glassy, looking far off, as if they were no longer there.

While watching a movie with my mother, I turned in surprise to see her shedding tears. I could not fathom why she would be doing such a thing. In the movie, the protagonist had just died after sacrificing themselves for their family and friends. The extras were crying and reminiscing about the memories of their lost comrade when large tears started rolling down my mom’s face. It has happened before; I suspect everyone has empathized with a story at least once before. Empathizing allows humans to understand another’s mental state; it gives them the opportunity to be able to respond with an appropriate emotion. iv Being able to read emotions is arguably what allows us to connect and be human. When we talk to each other, the face is what reveals if the topic at hand is serious or not. It is how humans are socialized when they are young.

In addition to surface-level expressions, the face can also tell you what kind of person someone is deep down. Crow’s feet are wrinkles that form around the eyes; they are also known as “happy lines” because they form when one is showing a “true smile.” Older people tend to have crow’s feet around their eyes when they’ve smiled often throughout their lifetime. There are other wrinkles: for example, the wrinkles that form around

the mouth, also known as frown lines, and the horizontal wrinkles on the forehead that are often referred to as worry lines. There are also small scars and sun freckles that may indicate where someone has been and may even reveal how active that person might have been.

Her mouth opened, revealing her teeth, the corners of her mouth rising to meet the wrinkles connecting her nose, looking excited. Little crevasses formed on her cheeks. Her eyebrows resting, and her forehead smooth. The corner of her eyes had three lines exploding from them. She was giving off a warm feeling.

When I was younger, I lost a friend because they claimed I could never understand the situation. v But as I’ve grown, I’ve become more aware of a person’s face. Being able to read if someone is being sarcastic or lying has helped me to understand the person. Facial expressions are a universal system of signals that can reveal a person’s ever changing emotional state. In other words, what we display to others is how we wish to frame ourselves to the world; yet, even faces don’t always show the whole picture. Paul Ekman, a psychologist focusing on facial expressions, uses the term “display rules”; these rules suggest that an emotional expression can be suppressed, de-amplified, exaggerated, or even masked altogether. vi Microexpressions are facial expressions that occur in a fraction of a second; this is the unconsciously shown emotion that displays the person’s true emotion. According to Ekman, understanding and recognizing these

that can reveal a person’s ever changing emotional

state. In other words, what we display to others is

how we wish to frame ourselves to the world; yet,

even faces don’t always show the whole picture.

microexpressions can increase one’s emotional awareness.

Their eyebrows ran a few centimeters away from their eyes, which widened as if terrified of what the pupils saw. Their mouth flopped open a little. Their pupils suddenly shrank, turning to the size of a pin.

In contrast, the face can also reveal someone’s health and genes. According to Schieb, Gangestad, and Thornhill (1999), facial symmetry correlates to physical attractiveness. vii Facial symmetry suggests a relatively healthy childhood free from disease; it also reveals one’s current health. viii So, people often choose others based on facial symmetry in order to have healthy offspring.

When I was in high school, the girls in my math class would always be fawning over the most attractive guy in the class. ix Later on in the year, we had to create a presentation connecting mathematical concepts to the real world. In a purely “scientific” manner, a girl gave a presentation to the class about McDreamy (see previous note). She described the

symmetry of his face, as well as the perfect ratios between his eyes, nose, and mouth. She ended the presentation by placing his face in the golden ratio and then triumphantly asking McDreamy out to prom. x

In the current fashion industry, models often appear to have near-perfect facial symmetry. Some people do augmentations to make their faces look more attractive. xi In popular culture, People magazine has been voting for the Sexiest Man Alive since 1944. In 2014, Chris Hemsworth was voted to be the Sexiest Man Alive. xii While observing

In seven seconds, people will create a solid

impression of you. Seven seconds to take a glance

at your face and judge your entire being. It’s not very

long, and you have no control over it.

Chris’s lovely face on the Internet, I noticed that he appears to have a very symmetrical face. While making this observation, I looked back at People’s Sexiest Men Alive, and I noticed that there seems to be a trend of sexy men who all appear to have facial symmetry.

Her face glowed. Cheeks turning the color of a peach. Her mouth was wide in the shape of a halved orange slice. The tips of her eyes slowly turned into a dark shade of pink, almost as if they were sunburned. She looked…awkward?

In sociology, “face” is a concept that refers to the need to maintain dignity or status in social situations. xiii Losing face means losing one’s dignity, while saving face means preserving one’s self-respect. When I first learned about this, I was really confused. How could someone lose their face? Did it just fall off? When I learned more English, I understood that this phrase was not literal, but for an extended period of time I thought Americans could slip their faces on and off like a mask.

The face is multidimensional. In dramaturgical theory, humans are seen as actors presenting themselves on stage with masks contracted out of their ideals of self and society. xiv Sociologists agree that all cultures have concerns, or take actions, when it comes to conserving and upgrading one’s face. xv

His mouth was plastered in a permanent Cheshire cat grin, as if tacks held his mouth in place. While he grinned, his eyes never followed. Looking forever blue, a hint of what was hiding beneath the grin.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. In seven seconds, people will create a solid impression of you. Seven seconds to take a glance at your face and judge your entire being. It’s not very long, and you have no control over it.

In dramaturgical theory, humans have masks with painted-on emotions that are fluid and always changing. Physiognomy, however, focuses on the mask itself. Specifically, physiognomy focuses on the resting face. The structure of the resting face is relatively stable, possibly revealing one’s character. xvi For example, someone who

has wide-set eyes, a small forehead, and a large nose may be classified as lazy. However, historically, this method has been linked to racial and sexual stereotyping. Resting-bitch face (RBF), a facial expression that seems angry or irritated, is an epidemic that plagues millions of teens across the world. RBF makes it so that the person’s resting face shows others that their character is mean. According to physiognomy, these people would just be unpleasant individuals. Yet, as far as I can tell, those with RBF are often the nicest of people. Furthermore, physiognomy has been concluded to have no accuracy. xvii

Their eyebrows where scrunched together, fighting for space in between the eyes. Their eyes looked fiery, focusing on the board. Yet their cheeks stayed relaxed, as if not knowing what was happening with the rest of the face.

Imagine seeing the face of your loved one. Their eyes. Their warm smile. Now, imagine not being able to recognize their face from a group of strangers, their face forever unattainable. Prosopagnosia is a neurological impairment that makes one unable to recognize faces. This occurs when the brain has lesions in the occipito-temporal cortex portion of the brain. Those with prosopagnosia are able to describe facial features, but they lack the ability to connect those features with familiar faces.

Is familiarity important in reading emotions? All emotions have the same baseline look, but having the memory and experience behind a person’s face may enhance one’s ability to read emotions. There are always those people who don’t really grin when they’re happy or cry when they’re sad. However, knowing them helps us look for the little

things. Different context clues allow humans to read the person’s inner character instead of their outward shell.

His face looked stern, his mouth grimacing like the Terminator. Yet, in the corner of his eyes, there seemed to be little rays of sun dancing out of his angry-looking eyebrows. “Are you okay?”

That question always takes me by surprise. How did they know? Did they read my mind? Illuminati confirmed? I never understood how they knew, even though it seems like such a simple equation. If someone looks sad, then something is wrong. I didn’t think my face looked blue, but they knew. How?

It was never something I understood. To me, those people were merely mind readers, not yet discovered and drafted by the Illuminati. But as I grew older, I started to look beyond the face. On the one hand, emotions allow people to read others like an open book. But on the other hand, it’s the things under the mask that allow us to understand the person even more.

She was staring off into space. She seemed melancholy, although her face refused to show it.

I was sitting outside my little sister’s school waiting for her to come out of her class. As her classmates came spilling out of the door, I tried to recognize some emotion. xviii Like little fireworks going off in my head, I recognized an emotion as a tiny human flew by.

ENDNOTES

i

I want to clarify, that I could see that the teacher was making a face, and it looked like surprise, but I didn’t really

understand the implications behind that face or whether that emotion really was trying to convey surprise.

ii

There has actually been research done to show that there might be four universal emotions instead of seven, since fear

and surprise as well as anger and disgust tend to share many similar facial features. See Jack, Garrod, and Schynz

(2014).

iii

See Ekman (1987).

iv

See Chakrabarti, Bullmore, & Baron-Cohen (2006).

v

I never really understood the little cues that girls would give to each other. A glance here, a smirk there. It was all

really confusing to me. I was constantly left out of the conversation because I couldn’t understand what my “friend”

was feeling and adapt to her situation. It got to the point where I just wanted to have a talk with her thoughts to

understand what was happening. Of course, reading minds is the kind of thing that only occurs in comic books about

a charming protagonist and wacky villain. Real life is much harder to understand than a story.

vi

See Ekman (2016).

vii

See Scheib, Gangestad, & Thornhill (1999).

viii

Humans are also known to be infatuated with symmetry and perfection, so health might not be the only reason. I

understand from art history that, in an art piece, the brush strokes and composition are always scrutinized. Each

blemish and flaw are often looked upon negatively. Just like the face—something that does not have any scars or

blemishes is often more enjoyed than something with pimples and dots, scars and lumps.

ix

I never got to learn his actual name, but the girls in class nicknamed him McDreamy based on the character in the

TV show Grey’s Anatomy. In the TV show, he was only every admired for his face. He had chiseled face and a shiny

white smile. Quite honestly, the guy’s face looked like any other average high school guy’s, with pimples and freckles,

but his eyes and smile were often the first things others noticed and admired.

x

In the end, he did say yes to her…although, after the promposal, his face looked as red as a tomato.

xi

Wearing sunglasses can increase the appearance of facial symmetry. This is because the glasses create structure to

the face. It also covers the eyes, which are often the first thing people look at when looking at a face. By covering the

top of the face, the cheek bones are softened, but the covered eyes create a sense of mystery. See Killip (2016).

xii

See Jordan & Coulton (2014).

xiii

See Demello (2012).

xiv

See Demello (2012).

xv

The term “face” first arose in China. The Chinese tend to have many terms for face: “selling face,” which means to

gain popularity; “ripping up face,” which means to crush someone else’s feelings. To the Chinese, the face represents

the self. See Demello (2012).

xvi

See Hassin & Trope (2000).

xvii

See Hassin & Trope (2000).

xviii I did this often to try and get a better grasp on emotional intelligence. It was a sort of game to me. Can you guess

facial expression. Did their eyebrows look neutral and flat like a toothpick? Did their mouth looked like a dancing earthworm? I always did so in some vain attempt to understand what others see. Eventually, I got quite good at it. They are happy because their face shows A, B, and C. They are sad because of Z, X, and Y. Understanding emotions allowed me to react with the appropriate face.

REFERENCES

Chakrabarti, B., Bullmore, E., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2006). Empathizing with basic emotions: Common and discrete neural substrates. Social Neuroscience, 1(3–4), 364-384. DOI: 10.1080/17470910601041317 Ekman, P. (2016). Nonverbal messages: Cracking the code. San Francisco: PEG. Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1987). Universals and cultural differences in facial expressions. Personality Processes and

Individual Differences, 53. Retrieved from https://www.paulekman.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Universals-And-Cultural-Differences-In-The-Judgment-Of-Facia.pdf. Demello, M. (2012). Face saving and losing face. Faces around the world: A cultural encyclopedia of the human face. Santa

Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Retrieved from http://du.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/ content/entry/abcclioihuo/face_saving_and_losing_face/0?institutionId=1676 Gibbons, S. (2018, June 20). You and your business have 7 seconds to make a first impression: Here’s how to succeed. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/serenitygibbons/2018/06/19/ you-have-7-seconds-to-makea-first-impression-heres-how-to-succeed/#2dddbd7456c2 Hassin, R., & Trope, Y. (2000). Facing faces: Studies on the cognitive aspects of physiognomy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 1–16. Retrieved April 14, 2019, from http://labconscious.huji.ac.il/wp-content/ uploads/2011/01/facingfaces.pdf Jack, R. E., Garrod, O. G., & Schyns, P. G. (2014). Dynamic facial expressions of emotion transmit an evolving hierarchy of signals over time. Current Biology, 24(2), 187-192. Retrieved April 14, 2019, from http://www.sciencedirect. com/science/article/pii/S0960982213015194 Jordan, J., & Coulton, A. Y. (2014, November 19). Chris Hemsworth is PEOPLE’s sexiest man alive. People Magazine. Retrieved December 9, 2019, from https://people.com/celebrity/ chris-hemsworth-is-peoples-sexiest-man-alive-2014/ Keating, C. F. (1985). Gender and the physiognomy of dominance and attractiveness. Psychology Quarterly, 48, 61–70.

Retrieved April 15, 2019, from https://www.jstor.org/stable/3033782?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents. Killip, T. (2016, October 20). Here’s why sunglasses make people look so much better. Complex.com. Retrieved from https://www.complex.com/style/2014/06/science-tells-us-the-linkbetween-sunglasses-and-looking-cool Scheib, J. E., Gangestad, S. W., & Thornhill, R. (1999). Facial attractiveness, symmetry and cues of good genes. Proc.

Biol. Sci. 266(1431): 1913–1917. Retrieved April 12, 2019, from https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/ rspb.1999.0866. Wierzbeicka, A. (1986). Human emotions: Universal or culture-specific? American Anthropologist New Series, 88(3), 584–594. Retrieved April 14, 2019, from https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1525/ aa.1986.88.3.02a00030

image provided by author

Esther Chung currently attends the University of Denver as a psychology and biology double major with a focus in cognitive neuroscience. Though she is not quite sure what she wants to do with her degree, she knows for sure that she wants to help others. She was born and raised in Colorado Springs, Colorado; both of her parents are restaurant owners, and she’s been a restaurant kid her whole life. Esther is the oldest of two, with a sassy younger sibling. Her hobby is drawing and watercolor-painting surreal landscapes, people, and animals. Esther enjoys cooking and trying out new recipes found on Buzzfeed’s Tasty.

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

I choose to study faces because of an encounter I had with a friend. In summary, I ended up misreading their face. Because of this, I have spent time observing faces and noticing how they are perceived every day. Last year, I took WRIT 1133 with Dr. David Riche, who asked me to think beyond the mundane and look at research papers through a new lens. In class we were told to embark on a quest—a quest for knowledge and research. By finding something to question, I was able to start a research quest; however, instead of a standard quest, I was able to write my own stories and show my research in my own way. Thanks to this, I was able to bring focus to the face. It’s something that is seen so often, yet not much thought is put into it.

While I was researching my topic, I realized that I didn’t have a good way to connect all my sources. Of course, they all related to faces, but my brain jumbled the pieces of information without creating bridges and connecting them. I needed something to glue the pieces of my map together in order to venture on my quest. When I wrote up my research, it began to look like a bunch of notes jotted down. I noticed how this style was similar to a research paper that we read in class, Kierra Aiello’s “Notes on Cupcakes” [from WRIT Large volume 4, 2015]. And with this example, I had the glue.

I used this note-taking style to my advantage. I began my research paper with broad ideas. How the face worked gave the audience a baseline, a starting place on the map. I then began to introduce the idea that the face can be more than what is seen on the surface. I gave the readers a break between the ideas by adding emotions I observed that were similar to the faces described; this strategy helped the notes to seem more fluid. It also allowed me to write in a way that would be interesting for a popular audience.

Going against the “conventional” research paper was an interesting journey. I was writing a story while being able to bring focus to what lies below the surface of the face. In the end, I hope the reader can appreciate how diverse the face can be. It is something that we see every day. Just walking past a stranger for a brief period of time—so much can be learned just by taking note of their face. I hope you can use some of the knowledge from this paper and are able to apply it to your everyday life. I believe that this takeaway is important since it could help us forge new relationships or strengthen old ones. After all, the face is such an underappreciated thing, but to enjoy it, all we need is a smile.