Dr. Paula Niedenthal thinks she knows what's so fascinating about the Mona Lisa's smile. In "More to a Smile than Lips and Teeth," and article by Carl Zimmer in the New York Times (read it here), she says that viewers respond to the Mona Lisa's smile because "you achieve eye contact with her...and so the fact that the meaning of her smile is complicated is doubly communicated, because your own simulation of it is mysterious and difficult."Dr. Niedenthal's research suggests that eye contact and the ability to mimic others' expressions provide keys to unlocking the secrets of smiles and judging whether they are real or fake, friendly or intimidating: "Embodying smiles not only lets people recognize smiles, Dr. Niedenthal argues. It also lets them recognize false smiles. When they unconsciously mimic a false smile, they don’t experience the same brain activity as an authentic one. The mismatch lets them know something’s wrong."
This could be a useful tool--mimic someone's expression and see what my gut tells me about motivations--but it's also a double-edged sword. I've never been any good at producing smiles on demand, which is why my driver's license photo always looks like someone who's trying to sell you a used car with a hidden oil leak and a bald tire and a transmission on the verge of catastrophic failure. My job sometimes requires me to deliver professional smiles, but I wonder how well they dissemble the turmoil that lies beneath.
Our daily campus dramas may not be quite as colorful as those of that fun-loving Oedipus family, but they might be more interesting if we followed the Greeks' lead and wore masks suggesting emotions appropriate to our roles. But how would those masks fit over the ones we're already wearing?
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