【纽约时报】解密微笑

阿联酋的西蒙

微笑是我们每天习以为常的事。但如何判断微笑的真假，微笑仅仅是个人内心感情的表达吗？心理学家的最新研究，为你揭开微笑后面众多奥秘。

In the middle of a phone call four years ago, Paula Niedenthal began to wonder what it really means to smile. The call came from a Russian reporter, who was interviewing Dr. Niedenthal about her research on facial expressions.

四年前，在一位俄罗斯记者通过电话对保拉•尼丹瑟(Paula Niedenthal)博士进行采访时，尼丹瑟开始思考，微笑到底意味着什么。那次采访的内容，是关于她从事的面部表情的研究工作。

“At the end he said, ‘So you are American?’ ” Dr. Niedenthal recalled.

尼丹瑟博士回忆道，“采访到了最后，那位记者问，‘那么你是美国人？’”

Indeed, she is, although she was then living in France, where she had taken a post at Blaise Pascal University.

的确，她是美国人，虽然生活在法国。她供职于布莱斯•帕斯卡大学(Blaise Pascal University)。

“So you know,” the Russian reporter informed her, “that American smiles are all false, and French smiles are all true.”

那位俄罗斯记者说：“你知道，美国人的微笑都是装出来的，而法国人的微笑是真实的。”

“Wow, it’s so interesting that you say that,” Dr. Niedenthal said diplomatically. Meanwhile, she was imagining what it would have been like to spend most of her life surrounded by fake smiles.

“噢，听你这样说很有意思。”她委婉地回答。与此同时，她开始想象，生活中大部分时间都被虚假的微笑围绕是个怎样的景象。

“I suddenly became interested in how people make these kinds of errors,” Dr. Niedenthal said. But finding the source of the error would require knowing what smiles really are — where they come from and how people process them. And despite the fact that smiling is one of the most common things that we humans do, Dr. Niedenthal found science’s explanation for it to be weak.

“一刹那间，我对人们是如何会出现这些差错的，起了兴趣。”尼瑟尔博士说。但要找到这些问题的源头，就需要先搞清楚微笑本身---这一表情是来自何方，人们如何处理微笑。尽管微笑是人类最习以为常的事，但她发现，对微笑问题的科学解释很薄弱。

“I think it’s pretty messed up,” she said. “I think we don’t know very much, actually, and it’s something I want to take on.”

“这块研究比较乱。”她说，“我认为，实际上我们对微笑，这一表情知之不多，我想自己得做些研究。”

To that end, Dr. Niedenthal and her colleagues have surveyed a wide range of studies, from brain scans to cultural observations, to build a new scientific model of the smile. They believe they can account not only for the source of smiles, but how people perceive them. In a recent issue of the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences, they argue that smiles are not simply the expression of an internal feeling. Smiles in fact are only the most visible part of an intimate melding between two minds.

为此，尼丹瑟博士和同事做了广泛的研究。从大脑扫描到文化观察，来建立新的，关于微笑的科学模型。他们相信，通过研究不但能说明微笑的起源，而且能解释人们是如何感知微笑的。在最新一期的《行为和大脑科学》杂志上，他们证明，微笑不仅仅是单个人的内心感情表达，事实上，微笑是两个人之间，心灵彼此交融的最明显的行为。

“It’s an impressive, sophisticated analysis,” said Adam Galinsky, a social psychologist at Northwestern University.

“这是一项令人钦佩的，复杂的分析研究。”西北大学社会心理学家亚当•格林斯基(Adam Galinsky)说。

Psychologists have studied smiles carefully for decades, but mostly from the outside. When the zygomaticus major muscles in our cheeks contract, they draw up the corners of our mouths. But there’s much more to a smile than that.

心理学家对微笑的研究已有数十载，但大部分研究侧重于外表。当我们面颊两侧颧肌收缩时，嘴角就会提起。但微笑远不是这么简单。

“A smile is not this floating thing, like a Cheshire Cat,” said Dr. Niedenthal. “It’s attached to a body.” Sometimes the lips open to reveal teeth; sometimes they stay sealed. Sometimes the eyes crinkle. The chin rises with some smiles, and drops in others.

“微笑并不是这么表面的动作，象电影《妙妙猫》里面的猫咪笑起来这么简单。”尼丹瑟博士说。“微笑的方式因人而异，有人会露出牙齿；有人会笑不露齿；还有的会眯起眼睛。也有人微笑时会扬起下巴，也会有人会垂下。”

Cataloging these variations is an important first step, said Dr. Niedenthal, but it can’t deliver an answer to the enigma of smiles. “People like to make dictionaries of the facial muscles to make a particular gesture, but there’s no depth to that approach,” she said.

将这种种的微笑方式分类是重要的第一步工作，她说。但仅仅分类还不能解开微笑之谜。“人们可以将引起脸部动作的肌肉运动进行归纳，但无法做进一步深入研究。”

Some researchers have tried to move deeper, to understand the states of mind that produce smiles. We think of them as signifying happiness, and indeed, researchers do find that the more intensely people contract their zygomaticus major muscles, the happier they say they feel. But this is far from an iron law. The same muscles sometimes contract when people are feeling sadness or disgust, for example.

有些研究者曾试过做进一步的研究，了解人类在微笑时的意识状态，我们认为是代表了幸福感。研究者也发现，人们在微笑时，颧骨肌肉收缩得越厉害，人们感到的快乐感也会随之提高。但这远不是铁律，例如，当人们感到悲哀或者厌恶时，颧骨肌肉有时也会同样收缩。

The link between feelings and faces is even more mysterious. Why should any feeling cause us to curl up our mouths, after all? This is a question that Darwin pondered for years. An important clue, he said, is found in the faces of apes, which draw up their mouths as well. These expressions, Darwin argued, were also smiles. In other words, Mona Lisa inherited her endlessly intriguing smile from the grinning common ancestor she shared with chimpanzees.

人们内心情感和面部表情间的关系则更令人扑朔迷离。某种情感会让我们露出笑容，究竟是什么原因？这个问题也萦绕了达尔文多年。他说，在类人猿身上发现了一条重要线索，它们也会咧开嘴。达尔文认为，类人猿的这些表情也是微笑。蒙娜丽莎那迷人而永恒的微笑，就是从这些龇着牙的祖先身上遗传下来的。

Primatologists have been able to sort smiles into a few categories, and Dr. Niedenthal thinks that human smiles should be classified in the same way. Chimpanzees sometimes smile from pleasure, as when baby chimps play with each other. but chimpanzees also smile when they’re trying to strengthen a social bond with another chimpanzee.

灵长目动物学家已经能将动物的微笑分成很多种类。尼丹瑟博士认为，对于人类的微笑也可以按此分类。当小黑猩猩互相嬉戏时，黑猩猩有时会因为高兴而微笑。但当黑猩猩在巩固与同类的社会联系时，也会微笑。

Dr. Niedenthal thinks that some human smiles fall into these categories as well. What’s more, they may be distinguished by certain expressions. An embarrassed smile is often accompanied by a lowered chin, for example, while a smile of greeting often comes with raised eyebrows.

尼丹瑟博士认为，某些人类的微笑也可以归入这些类别。而且，能通过特定的表情进行区分。尴尬的微笑经常伴随着下巴低垂。而人们问候时的微笑，常伴随着眉毛扬起。

Chimpanzees sometimes smile not for pleasure or for a social bond, but for power. A dominant chimpanzee will grin and show its teeth. Dr. Niedenthal argues that humans flash a power grin as well — often raising their chin so as to look down at others.

有时，黑猩猩也会为了权力露出笑容。居支配地位的黑猩猩会咧嘴笑，露出牙齿。尼丹瑟博士认为，人类也会露出这种展示权力的笑容，并且常扬起下巴，俯视别人。

“ ‘You’re an idiot, I’m better than you’—that’s what we mean by a dominant smile,” said Dr. Niedenthal.

“这种充满优越感的微笑，仿佛在说，你是个白痴，我比你优秀。”她说。

But making a particular facial expression is just the first step of a smile. Dr. Niedenthal argues that how another person interprets the smile is equally important. In her model, the brain can use three different means to distinguish a smile from some other expression.

但做出某种特别的面部表情，只是微笑的第一步。博士说。她认为，别人如何解读微笑也同样重要。在她的模型中，大脑可以采用三种不同途经分辨微笑的表情。

One way people recognize smiles is comparing the geometry of a person’s face to a standard smile. A second way is thinking about the situation in which someone is making an expression, judging if it’s the sort where a smile would be expected.

第一种方法，人们会将对方的面部表情和标准的微笑的样子做几何学的对比。第二种方法，人们会通过面部表情变化时，周围的情况，来判断对方微笑与否。

But most importantly, Dr. Niedenthal argues, people recognize smiles by mimicking them. When a smiling person locks eyes with another person, the viewer unknowingly mimics a smile as well. In their new paper, Dr. Niedenthal and her colleagues point to a number of studies indicating that this imitation activates many of the same regions of the brain that are active in the smiler.

但她认为，判断微笑最重要的方法，就是跟着对方一起微笑。当一个人面带微笑，双眼看着对方时，另一个人会不知不觉中模仿着微笑起来。在新发表的研究论文中，尼丹瑟博士和同事们的很多研究表明，在某人模仿者对方微笑时，双方大脑中的很多相同部分会被激活。

A happy smile, for example, is accompanied by activity in the brain’s reward circuits, and looking at a happy smile can excite those circuits as well. Mimicking a friendly smile produces a different pattern of brain activity. It activates a region of the brain called the orbitofrontal cortex, which distinguishes feelings for people with whom we have a close relationship from others. The orbitofrontal cortex becomes active when parents see their own babies smile, for example, but not other babies.

例如，快乐微笑时，大脑中的奖励“线路”就会被激活。而当人们看见快乐的微笑时，也同样会令这些“线路”兴奋起来。跟着对方一起微笑，这时，大脑产生不同的活动模式。它会激活前额脑区底部。我们判断和别人关系的亲疏，靠的就是大脑的这个区域。例如，当父母看到自己的婴儿时，这块区域就会活跃。而见到别人的孩子时，就不会。

If Dr. Niedenthal’s model is correct, then studies of dominant smiles should reveal different patterns of brain activity. Certain regions associated with negative emotions should become active.

如果尼丹瑟博士的模型是正确的，那么，对于那些展示支配权的笑容，通过研究，就会呈现一个不同的大脑活动模式。在人们做出这种表情时，大脑中和负面情感相关联的区域会变得活跃。

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.

尼丹瑟认为，跟着别人微笑不仅是人们判断微笑与否的方法，而且也能让人们辨别出微笑的真伪。在人们无意识地模仿别人虚假的微笑时，大脑中的前额脑区底部并不会变活跃，这和人们模仿真正的微笑时不同。人们马上会意识到对方的微笑有些不对劲。

Other experts on facial expressions applaud Dr. Niedenthal’s new model, but a number of them also think that parts of it require fine-tuning. “Her model fits really well along the horizontal dimension, but I have my doubts about the vertical,” said Dr. Galinsky. He questions whether people observing a dominant smile would experience the feeling of power themselves. In fact, he points out, in such encounters, people tend to avoid eye contact, which Dr. Niedenthal says is central to her model.

另外一些从事面部表情研究的专家，虽然对尼丹瑟的新模型表示赞同。但其中很多人也认为，她的模型还有颇多改进之处。“她的模型横向部分已经做得很好，但对于纵向研究方面，我仍然存疑。”格林斯基博士说。他提出，当人们看到那种显示支配权的笑容时，是否真的感到了权力的影响力。实际上，在这种情况下，人们会倾向于回避对方的目光。这也是尼丹瑟博士模型的重点部分。

Dr. Niedenthal herself is now testing the predictions of the model with her colleagues. In one study, she and her colleagues are testing the idea that mimicry lets people recognize authentic smiles. They showed pictures of smiling people to a group of students. Some of the smiles were genuine and others were fake. The students could readily tell the difference between them.

目前，尼丹瑟博士和同事们正在检验模型的预测能力。在一项研究中，她和同事们测试了模仿别人的微笑，是否能让人辨别出真假微笑。他们向一组学生展示了很多微笑的照片。其中有些照片中的微笑是装出来的。学生们很容易就区分出照片中微笑的真假。

Then Dr. Niedenthal and her colleagues asked the students to place a pencil between their lips. This simple action engaged muscles that could otherwise produce a smile. Unable to mimic the faces they saw, the students had a much harder time telling which smiles were real and which were fake.

然后，他们让学生们在嘴唇间含上一支铅笔。这个简单动作，让学生们无法模仿照片中的微笑。这时他们发现，学生们要判断照片中微笑的真假，就会困难很多。

The scientists then ran a variation on the experiment on another group of students. They showed the same faces to the second group, but had them imagine the smiling faces belonged to salesclerks in a shoe store. In some cases the salesclerks had just sold the students a pair of shoes — in which they might well have a genuine smile of satisfaction. In other trials, they imagined that the salesclerks were trying to sell them a pair of shoes — in which case they might be trying to woo the customer with a fake smile.

他们还变化了实验的方式。他们让另一组学生看相同的照片，并让他们想象，照片中的人就是鞋店里的售货员。刚向学生们成功推销出鞋子，他们露出的有可能是真实的笑容。而在另外一组学生的实验中，让学生们想象，这些售货员正在向他们推销鞋子，为了讨好顾客，他们露出的笑容有可能是堆出来的。

In reality, the scientists use a combination of real and fake smiles for both groups of salesclerks. When the students were free to mimic the smiles, their judgments were not affected by what the salesclerk was doing.

实际上，专家们给两组学生们看的照片中，都掺杂着真假笑容的照片。当学生们在任意模仿照片中的微笑时，他们对真假判断的结果，并没有受到照片中售货员动作的影响。

But if the students put a pencil in their mouth, they could no longer rely on their mimicry. Instead, they tended to believe that the salesclerks who were trying to sell them shoes were faking their smiles — even when their smiles were genuine. Likewise, they tended to say that the salesclerks who had finished the sale were smiling for real, even when they weren’t. In other words, they were forced to rely on the circumstances of the smile, rather than the smile itself.

当学生们口含铅笔时，他们无法再模仿照片中的微笑。他们反而更相信，照片中正在向他们推销的售货员的微笑是装出来的。即便照片中是真的微笑。同样，而对于照片中成功卖出鞋子后，售货员装出来的微笑，他们却误以为真。由此，在无法模仿微笑的情况下，学生们更依赖于当时的环境来判断笑容的真假，而不是微笑本身。

Dr. Niedenthal and her colleagues have also been testing the importance of eye contact for smiles. They had students look at a series of portraits, like the “Laughing Cavalier” by the 17th-century artist Frans Hals. In some portraits the subject looked away from the viewer, while in others, the gaze was eye to eye. In some trials, the students looked at the paintings with bars masking the eyes.

她和同事也测试了眼光接触对微笑的重要性。他们让学生观看一系列画像。如十七世纪艺术家弗兰斯•哈尔斯(Frans Hals)的作品，“微笑的骑士”。在一些画像中，人物看上去很远，而在另外一些画像里，画面上的人物好像正在注视你。而在对另外一组学生实验中，学生观看的画像中的人物，被遮盖了双眼。

The participants rated how emotional the impact of the painting was. Dr. Niedenthal and her colleagues found, as they had predicted, that people felt a bigger emotional impact when the eyes were unmasked than when they were masked. The smile was identical in each painting, but it was not enough on its own. What’s more, the differences were greater when the portrait face was making direct eye contact with the viewer.

然后，让被测试者对画像中人物表现的情感程度进行打分。恰如尼丹瑟和同事们预测的那样，当画像中人物的双眼未被蒙住时，同样的画像，表现的情感得分，要比双眼被蒙住时高。测试者都能判断出，画面中人物的微笑，但微笑的程度因为双眼被遮蔽会降低。但这还不够，画像中人物的双眼直视被测试者时，人物双眼遮盖与否，造成的这种判断差异，表现得更明显。

Dr. Niedenthal suspects that she and other psychologists are just starting to learn secrets about smiles that artists figured out centuries ago. It may even be possible someday to understand why Mona Lisa’s smile is so powerful. “I would say the reason it was so successful is because you achieve eye contact with her,” said Dr. Niedenthal, “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.”

博士怀疑，她和其他那些心理学家正刚开始研究的微笑的秘密，那些艺术家们在几个世纪前或许就了解了。也许有朝一日，我们能解开蒙娜丽莎微笑的魅力之谜。“我想说，蒙娜丽莎不朽的原因在于，你可以和她的目光交流。”尼丹瑟博士说。“而且，她的微笑很复杂，需要更多的交流。因为你在模仿她的微笑时，也是充满神秘和困难。”