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Today’s Lesson: The Smile
Observe the photograph. Research shows 92% of the people who sees this photograph smile (1). Research also shows smiling at this photograph crosses all socio-cultural boundaries: race, gender, class, religion, sexual preference, politics, and in some cases, species. Most common reasons given for smiling at the photo include: a) radical cuteness, b) a certain Betty Boop quality of the eyes, c) subject is sweeter than butterscotch puddin’ and d) ‘I just felt like it, why are you asking, leave me alone.’ (2). Respondent smiles were recorded on a 35 point scale ranging from ‘shy (with a demure downward glance)’ to ‘radioactive,’ with the median response falling in the ‘toes begin to curl’ category.
In humans, a smile requires the cooperation of 22 different facial muscles (3). Smiling is involuntarily echoic; a smile given is duplicated and returned. Smiling is a socially cascading phenomenon; when one person smiles, it sparks a smile in another, which sparks a smile in third. Research in Smile Theory indicates cascading smiles can reach astonishing speeds (4).
Research shows most research isn’t worth showing. A smile, however, is always worth showing.
Footnotes: (1) Of the 8% who don’t smile, research shows some suffer from facial paralysis, some are massively hungover, and the rest have hemorrhoids (1a).
(1a) Research shows 47% of the population smile at the word ‘hemorrhoids.’
(2) A small but statistically significant proportion of the population responded by giving an inarticulate squeal. Some squeals extended beyond the range of human hearing and may have initiated spontaneous mating behaviors in certain species of fruit bat.
(3) Or maybe it’s only 5. Or 9. Nobody really seems to know (or care). In extreme smiling situations this includes the occipito-frontalis and the extensor digitorum muscles (3a).
(3a)When smiling head to toe.
(4) In a recent experiment test 54,560 subjects were lined up at 3 foot intervals between Bullhead City and Kingman, AZ, a distance of 31 statute miles. This photo was shown to the first subject in Bullhead City; the cascading smile reached Kingman in 27.5 seconds, a speed of…let’s see, where’s my calculator…uh, it’s really really fast, I know that.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
