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We predicted that incidents of smiling and laughter would increase in the social condition, with the effect being greater in the larger group. Finally, in a social context it is useful to distinguish a non-vocal cue like smiling from laughter Haakana, Therefore we treat smiling and laughter as separate variables.
Participants were 20 children 11 female who attended a private preschool in Twickenham. All children were British born and included 19 who were white and 1 who was mixed raced. All parents provided written consent to the children taking part and verbal consent was also obtained from the children prior to testing sessions. Ethical approval was obtained from the ethics committee at Birkbeck, University of London.
Video clips from the Bernard Bear cartoon series were used as humorous material. The Bernard Bear series was chosen as it contains no dialog but relies on slapstick and incongruous humor which previous research has shown particularly appeals to children of preschool age Rothbart, Each video consisted of two episodes and had a total running time of between 6 min 35 s and 7 min 43 s see online materials for episode list.
Video clips were presented using a Lenovo ThinkPad 2. Participants were recorded via a built-in camera on the laptop as well as via a compact HD JVC camcorder placed on a tripod positioned just behind and to the right of the television screen. A Blue Snowball microphone was connected to the laptop and positioned on a shelf to the right of participants. The experimental independent variable was group size as a within subjects factor, a second between subjects independent variable counterbalanced viewing order.
Children were randomly assigned to three viewing orders A, B, and C, and watched three videos individually, in pairs, or in groups of 6 or 8 on separate occasions see Table 1 and online materials.
The two main dependent variables were the number of laughs and smiles elicited by the video clip in each child in each viewing condition. TABLE 1. Viewings of the funny video took place in three experimental conditions individual, pairs or groups that took place in three separate sessions with viewing order counterbalanced as shown.
The study took place over several sessions over a 6-week period supervised by two researchers, one of whom worked at the preschool and was well known to all the children. Video and recording equipment were set up in an area of the preschool separated from the main area by 1. In the individual viewing condition, a researcher invited one child to come to watch a short video clip and made the child comfortable on cushions on the floor at approximately 1.
Throughout the viewing of the video clip, both researchers were positioned just outside of the privacy screen, slightly behind and to the left of the child. This allowed the researchers to supervise and provide any necessary reassurance to the child, whilst remaining separate from the viewing process.
Care was taken by the researchers throughout to maintain a neutral expression and not to be perceived as participating in the watching of the video clip. This procedure was then repeated for the next child until all children had been tested. In the pairs viewing condition, the same procedure as above was followed, except that children were seated side by side on floor cushions.
In the group viewing condition, again, the same procedure was followed, except that children were seated in a semi-circle on floor cushions. In all viewing conditions, once the video clip had ended, the researcher who worked at the preschool asked each child how funny they thought the video clip was, using the visual scale described above.
Regardless of viewing condition, children were always asked individually. Finally, the child was invited to choose a sticker as a reward for taking part. Smiles and laughter were coded offline from the video recordings of the children.
Video presentation software Camtasia Studio 8 was used to allow the researchers to watch the recordings of participants simultaneously with the video clip being viewed. Laughs and smiles were operationalised based on the definitions of Chapman The three researchers each independently coded two thirds of videos across all viewing conditions, ensuring each video was coded twice.
A s timer was set to start 20 s after commencement of the video clip and to end once 6 min had elapsed. In each s interval, the researchers noted the number of laughs and number of smiles per child on a coding sheet see online materials. Once coding had been completed, the researchers compared their respective totals.
The pairwise correlations of total smiles and total laughs per child per view condition between coders were all greater than 0. In cases where there were minor discrepancies in totals, the mean number of laughs and mean number of smiles were calculated and recorded on a master table of data. A minor discrepancy was a scoring difference between coders of 3 or fewer laughs or smiles per child per video. In a small number of cases where discrepancies were larger, the video clip was re-watched and a consensus reached.
To investigate the social role of laughter and smiles in preschool children watching funny videos, laughter, smiles and funniness ratings were looked at separately. All analysis was performed using the R statistics language, version 3. The data, the analysis scripts and the code to generate all figures are provided in the online materials Addyman et al.
Table 2 shows the descriptive statistics and Table 3 the pairwise correlations for all the main experimental variables. TABLE 3. Pairwise Pearson correlations between child age and laughter and smile totals per condition. Using the smaller value we calculate that the necessary sample size to detect a similar effect with alpha level of 0. Our actual sample size of 20 participants gives a predicted power of 0. Descriptive statistics showed a greater number of laughs in the group viewing condition M 8.
The difference in laughter between viewing conditions was compared with a set of Bonferroni corrected two-tailed, pairwise t -tests. These results support the hypothesis that the amount of laughter is determined by the presence of a social partner and are shown in the left-hand panel of Figure 1. Tukey box plots of the number of laughs left and smiles right by condition.
Each dot represents one child in one condition and the superimposed box plots show the median and inter-quartile range. Horizontal bars above the plot indicate significance levels of the paired-sample t -test planned comparison.
Descriptive statistics showed a greater number of smiles in the group viewing condition M As before, group viewing conditions were compared with pair-wise t -tests.
Again, these results support the hypothesis that the amount of smiling is determined by the presence of a social partner and are shown in the right-hand panel of Figure 1. Despite laughing and smiling more when watching in pairs and groups, children did not rate the videos in these conditions as more funny. These ratings are summarized in Table 4. TABLE 4. Next, it was investigated whether subjective funniness ratings would predict the number of laughs and smiles. For each video the data were grouped according to whether each child had said the video was Not Funny, Quite Funny or Very Funny.
The mean numbers of laughs and smiles for each of these groups were then calculated. The data are shown in Figure 2.
How laughs left and smiles right relate to subjective funniness. However, both these analyses may be overly conservative given that the funniness rating scale is ordinal and ratings are repeated measures across the three experimental conditions.
Therefore, a further analysis was conducted using the repolr CRAN package, version 3. The rating was the response variable and Group Size and Presentation Order were entered as ordinal predictor variables.
Code for all these analyses is provided in the supporting materials. In line with predictions, we found that the presence of a social partner significantly increased smiling and laughter. When watching a funny cartoon, on average children laughed eight times more in company than when on their own, while smiles increased by a factor of around 2. The amount of laughter or smiling did not differ between pair or group conditions.
This suggests that the presence of a single social partner can be sufficient to increase overt laughter and smiles. Finally, there was no association between individual funniness ratings and the amount of laughter and smiles produced. Chapman found that 7—8 year-olds laughed and smiled more in pairs than individually. The findings of the current study extend that result by looking at a much younger age group mean age 3 years 4 months and by including a group condition.
The results of the present study provide a demonstration of the clear social role of overt laughter and smiles from a much younger age than shown in previous research. Furthermore, age was not correlated with any of the experimental measures suggesting this effect is already well established at this age. A challenge for future research would be to extend this method to younger ages.
The lack of difference in the amount of laughing and smiling between the pair and group conditions was unexpected. Mehu and Dunbar carried out naturalistic observations in public areas of people interacting in small groups in which group size, composition, in terms of sex and age of individuals, and social context of interactions were taken into account.
Their results revealed group size to have the largest overall effect on the amount of laughter and smiling, with rates increasing as a function of group size.
Group size had no influence in the current experiment, and the lack of difference between the pair and group conditions goes against a pure social contagion explanation. This is at odds with the contagious properties of laughter in preschool children reported by Brackett and Sherman , as well as with the experimental research using laugh boxes by Provine which found that laughter itself elicited laughter.
I don't know what he's smiling about. She smiles a beautiful smile. The difference between Laugh and Smile When used as nouns , laugh means an expression of mirth particular to the human species, whereas smile means a facial expression comprised by flexing the muscles of both ends of one's mouth, often showing the front teeth, without vocalisation, and in humans is a common involuntary or voluntary expression of happiness, pleasure, amusement or anxiety. Laugh as a noun : An expression of mirth particular to the human species; the sound heard in laughing; laughter.
Smile noun A somewhat similar expression of countenance, indicative of satisfaction combined with malevolent feelings, as contempt, scorn, etc; as, a scornful smile. Smile noun Favor; countenance; propitiousness; as, the smiles of Providence. Smile noun Gay or joyous appearance; as, the smiles of spring. Laugh verb produce laughter. Smile noun a facial expression characterized by turning up the corners of the mouth; usually shows pleasure or amusement.
Smile verb change one's facial expression by spreading the lips, often to signal pleasure. Smile A smile is formed primarily by flexing the muscles at the sides of the mouth. Laugh Illustrations.
Smile Illustrations. Popular Comparisons. Adress vs. Comming vs. Label vs. Genius vs. Speech vs. Chief vs. Teat vs. Neice vs. Buisness vs. Beeing vs. Amature vs. Lieing vs. Preferred vs. Omage vs. Finally vs. Attendance vs.
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