Abstract

Introduction: the number of studies carried out to investigate the nature of smiling as communicative feedback are extremely small. Therefore, the study is aimed at investigating the nature of smiling as communicative feedback. The study is theoretically built on previous research about feedback expressions and the nature of smiles and laughter in general.

Method: the study is based on a video-recorded first acquaintance context. Different kinds of smiles were coded from the participants’ interaction and was thereafter statistically analysed.

Result: feedback smiles are compared with non-feedback smiles. Time measurement and variance within each category of expression are tested. About 30 % of the coded smiles are feedback expressions. Very few of the feedback expressions are pure laughter. The differences between feedback expressions and non-feedback expressions are presented in terms of time length and displayed variance.

Conclusion: feedback expressions are typically short and unobtrusive. This is also the case with feedback smiles and laughter. The time is short and the variance is low.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.