Selective eye fixations and misinterpretation of non-happy eyes in smiling faces

Selective eye fixations and misinterpretation of non-happy eyes in smiling faces | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Selective eye fixations and misinterpretation of non-happy eyes in smiling faces Aida Gutiérrez-García, Andrés Fernández-Martín, Manuel G. Calvo This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-5227017/v2 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 2 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Show more versions Abstract There is a wide variety of smiles, and not all of them convey genuine happiness. We investigated how a smiling mouth in blended facial expressions with non-happy eyes (neutral, surprised, sad, fearful, disgusted, or angry) can wrongly bias their judgement as “happy” and slow down their correct evaluation as “not happy”. The attentional focus of participants was initially cued to the mouth of face stimuli, followed by unrestrained free viewing, with online assessment of eye movements. The face eye region was either congruent with the mouth (same eye-mouth expression), incongruent (non-happy eyes and a smile), or unrelated (no-mouth control). Results revealed: (1) interference in the incongruent condition, with non-happy eyes being incorrectly judged as “happy” and slowly judged as “not happy”; (2) the eyes, but not the mouth, were looked at longer and more often when they were incongruent; and (3) both effects varied depending on the type of non-happy eye expression. These findings are discussed in terms of two properties of the smiling mouth: (a) visual saliency driving an early perceptual-overshadowing/inattentional-blindness mechanism, and (b) diagnostic value driving a later semantic/categorical-priming mechanism. They presumably underlie the biasing influence of a smile on non-happy eyes in blended facial expressions. Biological sciences/Psychology Biological sciences/Psychology/Human behaviour Facial expression Mixed smiles Saliency and distinctiveness Eye movements Attention Full Text Additional Declarations The authors declare no competing interests. Supplementary Files S1SupplementaryDatasetExpressionCategorizationandEyeMovementsSREPMisinterpretationofNonhappyEyes.xlsx S1 Dataset. Expression Categorisation and Eye Movements. S2SupplementaryDatasetVisualSaliencyandLowlevelImageStatisticsDelLbanoetal.2018MisinterpretationofNonhappyEyes.xlsx S2 Dataset. Visual Saliency and Low-level Image Statistics (Del Líbano et al., 2018). Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 2 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Show more versions Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-5227017","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":378582263,"identity":"1f15df1d-8a4f-4045-867e-9887ae87f509","order_by":0,"name":"Aida Gutiérrez-García","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Universidad de Burgos","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Aida","middleName":"","lastName":"Gutiérrez-García","suffix":""},{"id":378582264,"identity":"b20df511-28e1-4b06-9dd7-8f6562cbde8c","order_by":1,"name":"Andrés Fernández-Martín","email":"data:image/png;base64,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","orcid":"","institution":"Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Andrés","middleName":"","lastName":"Fernández-Martín","suffix":""},{"id":378582266,"identity":"7ee52158-de36-4fde-991f-b444990e3570","order_by":2,"name":"Manuel G. 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We investigated how a smiling mouth in blended facial expressions with non-happy eyes (neutral, surprised, sad, fearful, disgusted, or angry) can wrongly bias their judgement as “happy” and slow down their correct evaluation as “not happy”. The attentional focus of participants was initially cued to the mouth of face stimuli, followed by unrestrained free viewing, with online assessment of eye movements. The face eye region was either congruent with the mouth (same eye-mouth expression), incongruent (non-happy eyes and a smile), or unrelated (no-mouth control). Results revealed: (1) interference in the incongruent condition, with non-happy eyes being incorrectly judged as “happy” and slowly judged as “not happy”; (2) the eyes, but not the mouth, were looked at longer and more often when they were incongruent; and (3) both effects varied depending on the type of non-happy eye expression. 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