Korean J Psychopharmacol.  2010 Jul;21(3):156-162.

Face and Emoticon: Behavioral Difference and Gender Effect

• Kim T
• Jeong B
• Kim JW
• Choi J

Abstract

OBJECTIVE
Emoticon as well as face is a tool for the communication of emotion. However, little is known about behavioral response to emoticon, unlike face. To explore the characteristics of behavioral response of emoticon and face, we measured both response time and accuracy in healthy young subjects.
METHODS
The 29 subjects were asked to respond to emoticons or faces which contained one among happy, sad, angry/fearful or neutral emotion. Using univariate analysis of variance, behavioral responses were analyzed for three main effects of stimulation (face, emoticon), emotion (happy, sad, angry/fearful, neutral), gender (male, female) and also their interactions.
RESULTS
The response to face was faster and more accurate than that to emoticon. Female's response to face, not to emoticon, was faster than male. A common finding of face and emoticon stimuli was that their responses were slower and less accurate in angry/fearful condition than in the rest emotional ones. There was not any interaction among three factors. The different finding was that neutral condition was less informative in only emoticon, not in face, condition.
CONCLUSION
Our results demonstrated emoticon is different from face in terms of the characteristics in the transfer ability of emotion and in gender effect.

Keyword

Emoticon; Emotion; Face; Gender difference

MeSH Terms

Humans
Male
Reaction Time
Transfer (Psychology)