by Abbe Macbeth and Jason Rogers



Let’s talk today about two men who have been in the news lately, primarily for their actions in the corporate and political worlds. First is Martin Shkreli.

Image from www.ndtv.com

If you haven’t heard of him, this man has been referred to as “the most hated man in America.” He’s been called everything from a “bankrupt sociopath”, to “garbage monster” to “scumbag”…and those are some of the nicer terms that have been used. Shkreli’s company acquired the rights to Daraprim, a drug relied upon by AIDS patients to address their susceptibility to the parasitic disease toxoplasmosis. The drug used to be available for <$15.00/pill; after Shkreli’s company purchased the drug, he raised the price to $750.00/pill – an over 5000% increase in price. His defense of the decision, followed by a statement in which he stated the company would lower the price of the drug, and subsequent failure to do so, is ultimately what led to the name calling mentioned above.

Now, let’s talk about this person:

Image from www.salon.com

As I’m sure everyone is aware, this is Donald Trump, the current leading nominee for the Republican candidate for President of the United States in the 2016 Presidential Election. While many commend him for being “outspoken” and “not a typical politician”, others have used far less complimentary terms. Between his statements on immigrants (referring to those from Mexico as rapists and criminals); women (calling those he doesn’t like “fat slobs”, and more); the poor (statements such as: certain things, like golf, should only be available to those who can afford it); and when he is quoted as saying “I mean, part of the beauty of me is that I’m very rich”…well, these statements do not endear him to large portions of the population.

Why are we discussing these two together? Last week, this photo of the two men made the rounds on the internet, with the attached caption at the top:

Image taken from www.twitter.com

We look at the “smile” on these two men’s faces, and something about it doesn’t ring true. Yes, our brains interpret what we are seeing as a smile, but we would never assign positive words to this facial expression – it seems smarmy, condescending, and at its heart, false. These do not strike us as real smiles. Indeed, pioneering facial expression researcher Paul Ekman stated in a 1962 article “Smiles help to conceal and distract observers from the clues to true feelings.” Could that be what is going on in the above photo – is there a scientific reason behind our “gut feeling” of false?

Running both faces through FaceReader™, the leading automated facial analysis tool available from Noldus, is revealing. By analyzing both facial expressions, even in a still image, the software can explain to us why these smiles appear false. The reason is simple: they are.

Fig 1. Martin Shkreli’s results are on the left, while Donald Trump’s results are on the right. The software identifies the dominant expression as “happy”.

As can be seen in Figure 1, FaceReader identifies both men as “happy”…but we all know from looking at these smiles that our brains would not classify these smiles as denoting “happy”. So what else is at play? To figure this out, we have to turn to the facial action units (AUs) – the anatomically distinct muscles that underlie each facial expression. Work by Paul Ekman and colleagues has indicated that three distinct AUs are involved in real smiles: action units 6, 7, and 12, which correspond to the muscles that raise the cheek (6), tighten the upper and lower eye lids (7), and raise the lip corners (12). The lack of action unit 6 or 7, in particular, is defined as a false smile. When FaceReader analyzes the AUs underlying the facial expressions in these two men, we see that they are not expressed as they would be with a “real” smile. In the case of Martin Shkreli (Figure 2), there is a complete lack of AU 7, and even AU 6 is only minimally expressed - a classic indication of a false smile.

Fig 2. FaceReader's analysis of facial action units for Shkreli denotes little involvement of AU 6, and none of AU 7, both of which are required for "real" smiles.

In the case of Donald Trump (Figure 3), we see a higher involvement of the cheek raise (AU 6), but minimal involvement of AU 7.

Fig 3. FaceReader's analysis of facial action units for Trump denotes high involvement of AU 6, but only trace amounts of AU 7.



The lack of involvement of these AUs tells our brains that this is NOT a real smile; Ekman first published this work over 50 years ago. In fact, looking at the expressions in Figure 1 (left), we easily see that there are non-trace amounts of contempt being read in this smile. As we previously posted, we as humans do not respond well to observing contempt in someone else’s face. This means that Martin Shkreli is a double whammy – not only is his smile false, but it’s attempting to mask contempt, and doing a poor job at that. With Donald Trump, FaceReader is not reading contempt, but instead disgust (Fig 1, right) – and if we, even subconsciously, read disgust on his face when he “smiles” at us, will that not turn us off from relating to him? This technology reveals that a smile isn’t always a smile, especially when that “smile” hides the true feelings underneath.

References:

Ekman, P & Friesen, W.V. (1962) Felt, False, and Miserable Smiles. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 6(4), 238-252.