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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Behav. Neurosci.
Sec. Individual and Social Behaviors
Volume 18 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2024.1420361

The other person's smiling amount affects one's smiling response during face-to-face conversations

Provisionally accepted
Yota Obayashi Yota Obayashi 1Shintaro Uehara Shintaro Uehara 2*Akiko Yuasa Akiko Yuasa 2Yohei Otaka Yohei Otaka 2*
  • 1 Fujita Health University Hospital, Toyoake, Aichi, Japan
  • 2 Fujita Health University, Toyoake, Aichi, Japan

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Introduction: Smiling during conversation occurs interactively between people and is known to build good interpersonal relationships. However, whether and how much the amount that an individual smiles is influenced by the other person's smile has remained unclear. This study aimed to quantify the amount of two individuals' smiles during conversations and investigate the dependency of one's smile amount (i.e., intensity and frequency) on that of the other. Method: Forty participants (20 females) engaged in three-minute face-to-face conversations as speakers with a listener (male or female), under three conditions, where the amount of smiling response by listeners was controlled as "less," "moderate," and "greater." The amount of the smiles was quantified based on their facial movements through automated facial expression analysis. Results: The results showed that the amount of smiling by the speaker changed significantly depending on the listener's smile amount; when the listeners smiled to a greater extent, the speakers tended to smile more, especially when they were of the same gender (i.e., male-male and female-female pairs). Further analysis revealed that the smiling intensities of the two individuals changed in a temporally synchronized manner. Discussion: These results provide quantitative evidence for the dependence of one's smile on the other's smile, and the differential effect between gender pairs.

    Keywords: Facial Expression, smile, mimicry, conversation, Interaction

    Received: 20 Apr 2024; Accepted: 29 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Obayashi, Uehara, Yuasa and Otaka. 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) or licensor 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.

    * Correspondence:
    Shintaro Uehara, Fujita Health University, Toyoake, 470-1192, Aichi, Japan
    Yohei Otaka, Fujita Health University, Toyoake, 470-1192, Aichi, Japan

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.