Cranberry: July 2012

Part II: Collecting All of the Information I Need

Laughter and smiling: Notes on co-occurrences

Markku, Haakana. "Laughter and Smiling: Notes on Co-Occurrences." Journal of Pragmatics 42.Laughter in Interaction (n.d.): 1499-1512.Web.

This article analyses some functions of smiling in relation to laughter. Two kinds of cases are analyzed. (i) Smiling can be used as a pre-laughing device: laughing together can be entered step-wise, and smiling is a common device for paving the way to the laughter. (ii) Smiling can be used as a response to laughter in the previous turn. The response can consist of just a smile or smiling can co-occur with some verbal utterance. The article shows that smiling as a response to laughter can have several interactional functions. It can be used to acknowledge the laugh ability of the previous turn, and sometimes even provides strong uptake of its laugh ability. However, smiling can also be an affiliative response to prior utterances that are constructed as delicate and troublesome (by laughter and other means). Laughter and smiling have different functions in different sequential and verbal contexts. The analysis concentrates on data from Finnish primary health care interactions and convenience store encounters. In addition, extracts of everyday telephone calls are analyzed to show that smiling can also be an acoustic phenomenon and thus available also when the interactants do not have visual access to each other.

Happy mouth and sad eyes: Scanning emotional facial expressions.

Eisenbarth, Hedwig, and Georg W. Alpers. "Happy Mouth and Sad Eyes: Scanning Emotional Facial Expressions." Emotion 11.4 (2011): 860-865.Web.

There is evidence that specific regions of the face such as the eyes are particularly relevant for the decoding of emotional expressions, but it has not been examined whether scan paths of observers vary for facial expressions with different emotional content. In this study, eye-tracking was used to monitor scanning behavior of healthy participants while looking at different facial expressions. Locations of fixations and their durations were recorded, and a dominance ratio (i.e., eyes and mouth relative to the rest of the face) was calculated. Across all emotional expressions, initial fixations were most frequently directed to either the eyes or the mouth. Especially in sad facial expressions, participants more frequently issued the initial fixation to the eyes compared with all other expressions. In happy facial expressions, participants fixated the mouth region for a longer time across all trials. For fearful and neutral facial expressions, the dominance ratio indicated that both the eyes and mouth are equally important. However, in sad and angry facial expressions, the eyes received more attention than the mouth. These results confirm the relevance of the eyes and mouth in emotional decoding, but they also demonstrate that not all facial expressions with different emotional content are decoded equally. This data suggest that people look at regions that are most characteristic for each emotion.

All smiles are positive, but some smiles are more positive than others.

Messinger, Daniel S., Alan Fogel, and K. Laurie Dickson. "All Smiles Are Positive, But Some Smiles Are More Positive Than Others." Developmental Psychology 37.5 (2001): 642-653.Web.

Disagreement as to whether all smiling or specific types of smiling index positive emotion early in life was addressed by examining when infants produced different types of smiling and other facial expressions. Thirteen infants were observed weekly from 1 to 6 months of age. Smiling alone—without cheek raising or mouth opening—was relatively more likely than periods without smiling both when mothers were smiling and when infants were gazing at their mothers' faces. Cheek-raise (Duchenne) smiling was relatively more likely than smiling alone only when mothers were smiling. Open-mouth (play) smiling was relatively more likely than smiling alone only when infants were gazing directly at mothers' faces. Smiling involving both cheek raising and mouth opening was relatively likely both when mothers were smiling and when infants were gazing at mothers' faces and became increasingly likely with age when both conditions co-occurred. The cheek-raise and open-mouth dimensions of smiling appear to be associated with, respectively, the amplification of processes of sharing positive affect and of visual engagement that are present to a lesser degree in smiling alone.

10 Hidden Benefits of Smiling.

Dean, Jeremy. "10 Hidden Benefits of Smiling." - PsyBlog. N.p., 08 June 2011. Web. 25 June 2012. <http://www.spring.org.uk/2011/06/10-hidden-benefits-of-smiling.php>.

People are always smiling, especially in groups, but it doesn't just signal that they're happy, far from it. We use smiles for specific social purposes because they can send out all sorts of signals that can be useful for us. When we smile we are sending out messages about our trustworthiness, attractively, sociability and more.

SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE.

Murphy, Austin. "Surprise, Surprise, Surprise." Sports Illustrated 113.15 (2010): 46-51. SPORTDiscus with Full Text. Web.

The article discusses sports upsets in college football in games played on October 16, 2010. Victories by the University of Wisconsin over Ohio State, by University of Texas over Nebraska and by University of Kentucky over South Carolina are examined. All three losing teams had been ranked in the top 10 in the U.S. in the Bowl Championship Series ratings, with Ohio State ranked first.

Anger: How to Recognize and Deal with a Common Emotion.

Kassinove, PhD, Howard. "Anger: How to Recognize and Deal with a Common Emotion. American Psychological Association, 10 May 2012. Web. <http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2012/05/anger.aspx>.

This article helps its reader to understand how to recognize and deal with Anger. Everyone knows what it feels like to be angry. Yet the causes, effects and ways to control anger are sometimes not well understood. Psychologists can help people recognize and avoid anger triggers. They also can provide ways to deal with anger when it does occur.

Fear: Imminent Danger

Beaumont, Leland R. "Fear: Imminent Danger." Emotional Competency. N.p., Web. 2005-2009. <http://www.emotionalcompetency.com/fear.htm>.

Everyone experiences fear at some time. This emotion is helpful because it quickly alerts us to imminent danger and prepares us to act to avoid that danger. Fear serves to protect us from harm. Fear is typical of emotions in that we have a physiological response, including a distinctive facial expression, the signal may or not be directly helpful in today's world, and we have choices in how to respond.

The signals that trigger fear originally developed millions of years ago. They include: something hurling rapidly toward you, such as a boulder rolling quickly toward you; sudden loss of support, such as the floor giving way; and the threat of physical pain. We also learn new triggers for our fears based on our experience in the modern world. Because these ancient triggers may not be relevant in today's world, we have to analyze the true source of our fears before deciding how to react. Falsely triggered fears, or ineffective responses, can increase our stress and make it difficult to relax.

Cranberry

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Outline

Monday, July 16, 2012

Annoying Ways People Use Sources

Reading Games and Writing Metaphor

Monday, July 9, 2012

Part II/ Citations & Summary

Monday, July 2, 2012

Thesis

Schedule/ Plan