Cover not available
Part of
Metapragmatics of Humor: Current research trends
Edited by Leonor Ruiz-Gurillo
[IVITRA Research in Linguistics and Literature 14] 2016
► pp. 235–254

Smiling, gaze, and humor in conversation

A pilot study

| Texas A&M University — Commerce, Applied Linguistics Laboratory
| Texas A&M University — Commerce, Applied Linguistics Laboratory
| Texas A&M University — Commerce, Applied Linguistics Laboratory
This paper presents a pilot study, which is part of a larger research project intended to shed light on the role of smiling as a marker of humor in naturalistic conversation. Building on previous research (Attardo, Pickering, and Baker 2011; Calvo, Fernández-Martín, and Nummenmaa 2013; Calvo, Gutiérrez-García, Avero, and Lundqvist 2013; Heerey and Crossley 2013), a mixed methods approach was adopted to collect qualitative and quantitative data in order to determine if there is a relationship between gaze patterns, humorous events, and the smiling behavior of native English speakers taking part in a dyadic face-to-face conversation. Preliminary results show that occurrence of humor and increased participants’ attention to the mouth and eyes areas of the interlocutor’s face tend to co-occur.
Keywords: smiling, humor markers, eye-tracking, gaze, discourse analysis
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Humor in interaction
  • 3.Eye-tracking in interaction
  • 4.Eye-tracking and humor in conversation
    • 4.1Method
      • 4.1.1Eye-tracking set-up
      • 4.1.2Participants
      • 4.1.3Data collection
    • 4.2Pilot study
      • 4.2.1Results
  • 5.Discussion of results
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 24 November 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ivitra.14.12gir
References
Ajmer, Karin and Anne-Marie, Simon-Vandenbergen
2011 Pragmatic markers. In Jan Zienkowski, Jan-Ola Östman, and Jef Verschueren (Eds.), Discursive Pragmatics. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 223–247. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Annoli, Luigi, and Lambiase, Laura
1990 ““Giochi di sguardo” nella conversazione.” Giornale Italiano di psicologia XVII(1): 27–58.Google Scholar
Attardo, Salvatore
1994 Linguistic Theories of Humor. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
2001 Humorous Texts. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2012 “Smiling, Laughter, and Humor.” In Paolo Santangelo (Ed.), Laughing in Chinese. Rome: Aracne. 421–436.Google Scholar
2015 “Humor and Laughter.” In Deborah Tannen, Heidi E. Hamilton, and Deborah Schiffrin (Eds.), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, Second edition. Chichester, UK: John Wiley and Sons. 168–188.Google Scholar
Forthcoming). The GTVH and Humorous Discourse.
Attardo, Salvatore, and Pickering, Lucy
2011 “Timing in the performance of jokes.” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 24(2): 233–250 DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Attardo, Salvatore, Pickering, Lucy, and Baker, Amanda
2011 “Prosodic and Multimodal Markers of Humor in Conversation.” Pragmatics and Cognition, 19(2): 224–247. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Attardo, Salvatore, Pickering, Lucy, Lomotey, Fofo, Menjo, Shigehito
2013 “Multimodality in Conversational Humor.” Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 11(2): 400–414. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Attardo, Salvatore and Raskin, Victor
1991 “Script theory revis(it)ed: joke similarity and joke representation model.” HUMOR, 4(3): 293–347.Google Scholar
Attardo, Salvatore, Wagner, Manuela, and Urios-Aparisi, Eduardo
2011 “Prosody and Humor.” Prosody and Humor. Special issue of Pragmatics and Cognition, 19(2): 189–201. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barisic, Iva, Timmermans, Bert, Pfeiffer, Bente, Gary, Ulrich J., Vogeley, Kay, and Schilbach, Leonhard
2013 “Using dual eye-tracking to investigate real-time social interactions.” Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.Google Scholar
Beattie, Geoffrey W.
1978 “Floor apportionment and gaze in conversational dyads.” British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 17(1): 7–15. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brône, Geert and Oben, Bert
2015 “InSight Interaction: a multimodal and multifocal dialogue corpus.” Language Resources and Evaluation, 49(1): 195–214. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Broz, Frank, Lehmann, Hagen, Nehaniv, Chrystopher L., and Dautenhahn, Kerstin
2012 “Mutual Gaze, Personality, and Familiarity: Dual Eye-Tracking During Conversation.” IEEE RO-MAN: The 21st IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, 858–864.Google Scholar
Calvo, Manuel G., Fernández-Martín, Andrés, and Nummenmaa, Lauri
2013 “A smile biases the recognition of eye expressions: Configural projection from a salient mouth.” The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 66(6): 1159–1181. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Calvo, Manuel G., Gutiérrez-García, Aida, Avero, Pedro, and Lundqvist, Daniel
2013 “Attentional Mechanisms in Judging Genuine and Fake Smiles: Eye-Movement Patterns.” Emotion, 13(4): 792–802. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Canestrari, Carla
2010 “Meta-communicative signals and humorous verbal Interchanges: A case study.” Humor. International Journal of Humor Research, 23 (3): 327–349. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cary, Mark S.
1978 “The role of gaze in the initiation of conversation.” Social Psychology, 41: 269–271. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clark, Alan T., and Gergle, Darren
2011 “Mobile Dual Eye-Tracking Methods: Challenges and Opportunities.” Paper presented at DUET 2011: Dual Eye-tracking Workshop at ECSCW 2011 (Aarhus, Denmark. September 25, 2011.)
Creswell, John W. and Plano Clark, Vicky L.
2011 Designing and conducting mixed methods research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Duchowsky, Andrew
2007 Eye-tracking Methodology: Theory and Practice. London: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Ekman, Paul, and Friesen, Wallace V.
1978 Facial Action Coding System. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.Google Scholar
Eisterhold, Jody, Attardo, Salvatore, and Boxer, Diana
2006 “Reactions to irony in discourse: Evidence of the Least Disruption Principle.” Journal of Pragmatics, 38(8): 1239–1256. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fernández-Martín, Andres and Calvo, Manuel
2012 “Curso temporal en la discriminación de la sonrisa: medidas de latencia sacádica.� �Psicológica, 33: 319–343.Google Scholar
Fernández-Martín, Andres, Gutiérrez-García, Aida and Gutiérrez-Calvo, Manuel G.
2013 “A smile radiates outwards and biases the eye expression”.� �Spanish Journal of Psychology 16(53): 1–11. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Gironzetti, Elisa and Menjo, Shigehito
2014 “Smiling as a Discourse Marker of Humor.” Paper presented at the 2nd Conference of the American Pragmatics Association (AMPRA), October 17-19, 2014, University of California, Los Angeles.
Gullberg, Marianne and Kenneth Holmqvist
2006 “What speakers do and what addressees look at. Visual attention to gestures in human interaction live and on video.” Pragmatics and Cognition, 14(1): 53–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hall, Edward T. and Mildred Reed Hall
1990 Understanding cultural difference. Yarmouth, Me: Intercultural Press.Google Scholar
Harker, LeeAnne and Dacher Keltner
2001 “Expressions of Positive Emotion in Women’s College Yearbook Pictures and Their Relationship to Personality and Life Outcomes Across Adulthood.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(1): 112–124. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hayhoe, Mary M. and Dana H. Ballard
2005 “Eye Movements in Natural Behavior.” Trends in Cognitive Science 9(4): 188–194. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heerey, Erin A. and Crossley, Helen M.
2013 “Predictive and Reactive Mechanisms in Smile Reciprocity.” Psychological Science, 24(8): 1446–1455. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hertenstein, Matthew J., Hansel, Carrie A., Butts, Alissa M., and Hile, Sarah N.
2009 “Smile intensity in photographs predicts divorce later in life.” Motivation and Emotion, 33(2): 99–105. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hess, Ursula, and Bourgeois, Patrick
2010 “You smile — I smile: Emotion expression in social interaction.” Biological Psychology, 84: 514–520. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jandt, Fred E.
2010 An Introduction to Intercultural Communication: Identities in a Global Community. Los Angeles: Sage.Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail
1979 “A technique for inviting laughter and its subsequent acceptance declination.” In Psathas, George (Ed.), Everyday Language. Studies in Ethnomethodology. New York: Irvington. 79–96.Google Scholar
Kendon, Adam
1967 “Some functions of gaze-direction in social interaction.” Acta Psychologica, 26: 22–63. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kleinke, Chris L.
1986 “Gaze and Eye Contact: A Research Review.” PsyChological Bulletin, 100(1): 78–100. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Knackstedt, Georgia, and Kleinke, Chris
1991 “Eye contact, gender, and personality judgments.” The Journal of Social Psychology, 131: 303–304. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kothoff, Helga
2003 “Responding to irony in different contexts: On cognition in conversation.” Journal of Pragmatics, 35: 1387–1411. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Levine, Marion H., and Sutton-Smith, Brian
1973 “Effects of age, sex and task on visual behavior during dyadic interaction.” Developmental Psychology, 9: 40–405. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Norrick, Neal R.
1993 Conversational joking: Humor in everyday talk. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
O’Donnell-Trujillo, Nick, and Adams, Katherine
1983 “Heheh in conversation: some coordinating accomplishments of laughter.” Western Journal of Speech Communication, 47: 175–191. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Olsen, Anneli
2012 “The Tobii I-VT Fixation Filter. Algorithm description.” Retrieved from Tobii White Papers Library, [URL].
Oveis, Christopher, Gruber, June, Keltner, Dacher, Stamper, Juliet L., and Boyce, Thomas W.
2009 “Smile Intensity and Warm Touch as Thin Slices of Child and Family Affective Style.” Emotion, 9(4): 544–548. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Paxton, Alexandra, and Dale, Rick
2013 “Argument disrupts interpersonal synchrony.” Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 66(11): 2092–2102. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pickering, Lucy, Corduas, Marcela, Eisterhold, Jody, Seifried, Brenna, Eggleston, Alyson, and Salvatore Attardo
(2009) “Prosodic Markers of Saliency in Humorous Narratives.” Discourse Processes, 46: 517–540. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Raidt, Stephan, Bailly, Gérard, and Elisei, Frédéric
2007 “Analyzing and modeling gaze during face-to-face interactions.” 7th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA), Paris, France, 100–101. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Raskin, Victor
1985 Semantic Mechanisms of Humor. Dodrecht: D. Reidel.Google Scholar
Richardson, Daniel C., Dale, Rick, and Kirkham, Natasha
2007 “The art of conversation is coordination: common ground and the coupling of eye movements during dialogue.” Psychological Science, 18: 407–413. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rosengrant, Davod, Hearrington, Doug, Alvarado, Kerriann, and Keeble, Danielle
2012 “Following Student Gaze Patterns in Physical Science Lectures.” AIP Conference Proceedings, 1413: 323–326. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sacks, Harvey
1974. [1989] “An analysis of the course of a joke’s telling in conversation.” In Bauman, R. and Joel Sherzer (Eds.) Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking. 2nd edition. 337–353. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emauel. A., Jefferson, Gail., and Sacks Harvey
1977 “The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation.” Language, 53: 361–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Seder, Patrick J., and Oishi, Shigehiro
2012 “Intensity of smiling in facebook photos predicts future life satisfaction.” Social Psychological and Personality Science, 3(4): 407–413. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tsakona, Villy
2013 “Okras and the metapragmatic stereotypes of humour: Towards an expansion of the GTVH”. In M. Dynel (Ed.), Developments in Linguistic Humour Theory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 25–48. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vertegaal, Roel, Slagter, Robert, van der Veer, Gerrit, and Nijholt, Anton
2001 “Eye Gaze patterns in Conversation: There is More to Conversational Agents Than Meets the Eyes.” CHI 3(1): 301–308.Google Scholar
Ye, Zhefan, Li, Yin, Fathi, Alireza, Han, Yi, Rozga, Agata, Abowd, Gregory, D., and Rehg, James M.
2012 “Detecting eye contact using wearable eye-tracking glasses.” Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp’12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 699–704. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yu, Che, Scheutz, Matthias, and Schermerhorn, Paul W.
2010 “Investigating multimodal real-time patterns of joint attention in an HRI Word Learning Task.” 5th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 309–316. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wild, Barbara, Erb, Michael, Eyb, Michael, Bartels, Mathias, and Grodd, Wolfgang
2003 “Why are smiles contagious? An fMRI study of the interaction between perception of facial affect and facial movements.” Psychiatry Research, 123: 17–36. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Williams, Jason A., Burns, Erin L., and Harmon, Elizabeth A.
2009 “Insincere Utterances and gaze: Eye Contact During Sarcastic Statements.” Perceptual and Motor Skills, 108: 565–572. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 9 other publications

Attardo, Salvatore
2019. Chapter 8. Humor and mirth. In Emotion in Discourse [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 302], ► pp. 189 ff. DOI logo
Attardo, Salvatore
2020. Humor. In Handbook of Pragmatics [Handbook of Pragmatics, ], ► pp. 155 ff. DOI logo
de Vries, Clarissa, Bert Oben & Geert Brône
2021. Exploring the role of the body in communicating ironic stance. Languages and Modalities 1 ► pp. 65 ff. DOI logo
Gironzetti, Elisa, Salvatore Attardo & Lucy Pickering
2019. Smiling and the Negotiation of Humor in Conversation. Discourse Processes 56:7 ► pp. 496 ff. DOI logo
Ladilova, Anna & Ulrike Schröder
2022. Humor in intercultural interaction: A source for misunderstanding or a common ground builder? A multimodal analysis. Intercultural Pragmatics 19:1 ► pp. 71 ff. DOI logo
Rauzy, Stéphane & Mary Amoyal
2022. Automatic tool to annotate smile intensities in conversational face-to-face interactions. Gesture 21:2-3 ► pp. 320 ff. DOI logo
Ritschel, Hannes, Thomas Kiderle, Klaus Weber, Florian Lingenfelser, Tobias Baur & Elisabeth André
2020. Multimodal Joke Generation and Paralinguistic Personalization for a Socially-Aware Robot. In Advances in Practical Applications of Agents, Multi-Agent Systems, and Trustworthiness. The PAAMS Collection [Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 12092], ► pp. 278 ff. DOI logo
Sülflow, Michael & Marcus Maurer
2019. The Power of Smiling. How Politicians’ Displays of Happiness Affect Viewers’ Gaze Behavior and Political Judgments. In Visual Political Communication, ► pp. 207 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2022. The Multimodal Performance of Conversational Humor [Figurative Thought and Language, 13], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 17 november 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.