EMOJIS 1 : Anger & Surprise
KEY CONCEPT: Why certain emojis succeed and others fail as expressive faces we all can recognize.
Figure 1: A quick clip of emojis on the web show a variety of artistic interpretations of two of the cardinal facial expressions - Anger & Surprise.
We’ve got a new baby in my house – my grandson. It’s absolutely striking how much time junior spends fixating on faces, normal for a newborn and a reminder of how central the face is to humans of any age. Similarly, my 94-year-old mom is more intrigued by faces than anything else; when I walk into the room she tracks my face no matter what else she might have been looking at.
All this is to say that it’s no wonder that emojis, the little cartoon faces that were developed for text messages, have become an enormous worldwide phenomena, used for communication by billions of people, often to the extent where the written word is somewhat beside the point.
All this is to say that it’s no wonder that emojis, the little cartoon faces that were developed for text messages, have become an enormous worldwide phenomena, used for communication by billions of people, often to the extent where the written word is somewhat beside the point.
CONTEXT COUNTS
 Figure 2. "Man" (left) & "House" (right) written in Chinese characters | "Emoji" is Japanese for "Picture Character." An emoji is a facial pictograph that conveys its meaning through its resemblance to an emotional state, As such, emojis are both literal and contextual -- they occupy a middle zone where their meaning is partly based on what they look like, and partly based on how they are actually used – the meaning they take on. |
Chinese writing is a familiar example of a characters that can be intelligible as visual representations of a particular object for the unfamiliar reader. The written character for “man” in Figure 2 (left), for example, looks like a walking person. But interpreting most Chinese characters requires prior knowledge, such as the much more complex pictograph for “house” in Figure 2 (right).
 Figure 3. "Relieved Face," a popular emoji to express concern combined with relief. | Fortunately, emojis are much more visually legible than Chinese characters; nonetheless, many faces require prior knowledge to be read as the sender intended. “Relieved Face” in Figure 3 provides a perfect example of why "context counts." It is currently trending at #20 for Most Popular Emoji on Twitter and is “used in response messages to friends or relatives, showing that you are sad for them but also relieved that they are okay.” This emoji attempts to depict an expression that has no clear human facial counterpart. When I tested a drawn version of this facial configuration online, respondents were almost equally split between reading the expression as sadness or fear. It is a face in obvious distress, but there is no nuance that suggests some measured assessment of another person's pain, as the definition would require. Needless to say, the tear does not change anything. |
Emojis represent an extreme version of facial stylization, simple and bold enough to be readable at an extremely small size. Can that work for facial expression?
The answer is a qualified "yes"; many emoji's depicting the cardinal expressions Fear, Sadness, Joy, Anger, and Surprise work pretty well; Disgust is another story. Emojis also become much more symbolic than descriptive when they attempt to describe emotional states that don't display as clear expressions, as in the relieved face above.
In this and future blogs, I'll look at the best and worst examples of recent emojis, starting this month with Anger and Surprise.
The answer is a qualified "yes"; many emoji's depicting the cardinal expressions Fear, Sadness, Joy, Anger, and Surprise work pretty well; Disgust is another story. Emojis also become much more symbolic than descriptive when they attempt to describe emotional states that don't display as clear expressions, as in the relieved face above.
In this and future blogs, I'll look at the best and worst examples of recent emojis, starting this month with Anger and Surprise.
THE ANGRY FACE
 | CLASSIC ANGER:
|
WORST ANGRY EMOJI
 1. WHATSAPP |  2. APPLE |
|
BEST ANGRY EMOJI
 3. FACEBOOK |  4. SAMSUNG |
|
THE SURPRISED FACE
 | CLASSIC SURPRISE
|
WORST SURPRISE EMOJIS
 1. EMOJIDEX |  2. GOOGLE |
|
BEST SURPRISE EMOJIS
 3. APPLE |  4. AUTHOR VERSION |
|
Stay tuned for Joy & Sadness emojis in a future blog post.
CREDITS : Figure 1: Top row of "Emoticons - Anger & Surprise" clipped from Bing; Figure 2: Chinese writing characters from internet, source unknown; Figure 3: "Sad but Relieved Face" emoji on Apple iOS 11.1 from www.emojipedia.com; Angry & Surprised Face Drawings: from the blog author's book, "The Artist's Complete Guide to Facial Expressions," published by Random House, © 1990: Angry & Surprised Emojis: All emojis copied from www.emojipedia.com
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