Happiness on the face: the 17 joyful gestures

Language is not the only way to communicate. We can transmit messages with the face, the body posture and even with the eyelashes. Researchers at Ohio State University (USA) focused their studies on the face and discovered that there are only 35 universal expressions. Among these, the first on the podium is happiness, transmitted by 17 gestures.

"It was a wonderful discovery because it speaks of the complex nature of this feeling," said Aleix Martínez, one of the authors of the article published in the scientific journal, to foreign media. . IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing. The The differences between the 17 gestures range from the size of the smile to the wrinkles around the eyes.

To reach this conclusion, the scientists compiled a list of 821 words describing the feelings, translated them into four languages ​​and used them to search images of faces on the Internet. Thus, they managed to collect 7.2 million facial expressions from different cultures (although they do not include countries from the African continent). Then they badyzed them with a category-based algorithm. They discovered that 16,384 gestures can be done with the face, of which only 35 are universal. "We were surprised, we thought there would be a lot of others," said Martinez.

The badysis also revealed that if we want to express disgust, we just need an expression to make us understand anywhere in the world. To demonstrate the fear There are three possibilities. for the surprisefour; and for the sadness and anger, five. "Happiness acts as a social cement and requires the complexity of different gestures." The displeasure is just that: disgust, "said the researcher.