Smile Mimicry and Emotional Contagion in Audio-Visual Computer-Mediated Communication

We investigate whether smile mimicry and emotional contagion are evident in non-text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC). Via an ostensibly real-time audio-visual CMC platform, participants interacted with a confederate who either smiled radiantly or displayed a neutral expression throughout...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Frontiers in psychology Vol. 9; p. 2077
Main Authors:	Mui, Phoebe H C, Goudbeek, Martijn B, Roex, Camiel, Spierts, Wout, Swerts, Marc G J
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Switzerland Frontiers Media S.A 05-11-2018
Subjects:	audio-visual communication computer-mediated communication emotional contagion nonverbal behavior Psychology smile mimicry smile mimicry emotional contagion nonverbal behavior audio-visual communication computer-mediated communication
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Summary:	We investigate whether smile mimicry and emotional contagion are evident in non-text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC). Via an ostensibly real-time audio-visual CMC platform, participants interacted with a confederate who either smiled radiantly or displayed a neutral expression throughout the interaction. Automatic analyses of expressions displayed by participants indicated that smile mimicry was at play: A higher level of activation of the facial muscle that characterizes genuine smiles was observed among participants who interacted with the smiling confederate than among participants who interacted with the unexpressive confederate. However, there was no difference in the self-reported level of joviality between participants in the two conditions. Our findings demonstrate that people mimic smiles in audio-visual CMC, but that even though the diffusion of emotions has been documented in text-based CMC in previous studies, we find no convincing support for the phenomenon of emotional contagion in non-text-based CMC.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 Edited by: Stefan Kopp, Universität Bielefeld, Germany This article was submitted to Human-Media Interaction, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology Reviewed by: Gualtiero Volpe, Università di Genova, Italy; Mohammad Soleymani, Université de Genève, Switzerland
ISSN:	1664-1078 1664-1078
DOI:	10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02077