The recognition of emotions beyond facial expressions: Comparing emoticons specifically designed to convey basic emotions with other modes of expression

Abstract

The development of information and communication technologies has provided a new non-verbal channel to convey emotions using emoticons. Although a great diversity of emoticons is widely used today in text-based communications, little is known about the way emotions are recognized when using emoticons compared to other modes of expression. In a pretest and three studies (N = 1203), ‘new’ emoticons specifically designed to represent the six basic emotions were proposed to participants who had to recognized the emotions conveyed by each. The quality of recognition was compared to other modes of emotional expression, including facial expressions. In using a between-subject design, the first two studies revealed that the emotions conveyed by ‘new’ emoticons were recognized more effectively than other modes of expression, including facial expressions. Using a within-subject design, a third study confirmed the more successful recognition of ‘new’ emoticons than other modes of expression, and with a greater intensity. For all the studies, this effect was mainly due to the negative emotions of disgust (Study 1, 2, and 3) and sadness (Study 2 and 3). These findings suggest the need to use specific emoticons to convey easily recognized basic emotions for communication technologies, and implement them in social media.