Spot the Fake Smile

I recently finished reading A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule The Future by Daniel H. Pink. When I completed the empathy chapter, I read the portfolio and decided to take BBC's Spot the Fake Smile test. This test was formed through the research of Paul Ekman.

I chose to take this test for a few reasons. One reason I decided to take this test was that I wanted to see whether or not I could spot a fake. Also this test would tell me the difference in a true smile, and a fake. The final reason I chose this test was because it could help me in the future when meeting new people to see if they were truly friendly or not.

For the test, I streamed twenty clips of people smiling, and I determined whether or not the smile was genuine or fake. The test took about ten minutes. I scored fifteen out of twenty videos correct. I learned that determining whether a smile is fake or genuine is not as easy as it looks. After I took the test, I read a brief overview of the test, and I learned that different muscles were used in forming a genuine or a fake smile, thus using a different part of the brain. Also, when a smile is genuine, it is generated by the unconscious brain, unlike a fake one. Hopefully by taking this test, I can tell a fake in the future. I also noticed that when determining whether a smile was true or not was to look into their eyes because the eyes never lie.

Here are some examples of fake and genuine smiles that I got correct.