Facial behavior

: We provide an overview of the current state-of-the-art regarding research on facial behavior from what we hope is a well-balanced historical perspective. Based on a critical discussion of the main theoretical views of nonverbal facial activity (i.e., affect program theory, appraisal theory, dimensional theory, behavioral ecology), we focus on some key issues regarding the cohesion of emotion and expression, including the issue of “genuine smiles.” We argue that some of the challenges faced by the field are a consequence of these theoretical positions, their assumptions, and we discuss how they have generated and shaped research. A clear distinction of encoding and decoding processes may prove beneficial to identify specific problems – for example the use of posed expressions in facial expression research, or the impact of the psychological situation on the perceiver. We argue that knowledge of the functions of facial activity may be central to understanding what facial activity is truly about; this includes a serious consideration of social context at all stages of encoding and decoding. The chapter concludes with a brief overview of recent technical advances and challenges highlighted by the new field of “affective computing” concerned with facial activity

Social presence and dishonesty in retail

Self-service checkouts (SCOs) in retail can benefit consumers and retailers, providing control and autonomy to shoppers independent from staff, together with reduced queuing times. Recent research indicates that the absence of staff may provide the opportunity for consumers to behave dishonestly, consistent with a perceived lack of social presence. This study examined whether a social presence in the form of various instantiations of embodied, visual, humanlike SCO interface agents had an effect on opportunistic behaviour. Using a simulated SCO scenario, participants experienced various dilemmas in which they could financially benefit themselves undeservedly. We hypothesised that a humanlike social presence integrated within the checkout screen would receive more attention and result in fewer instances of dishonesty compared to a less humanlike agent. This was partially supported by the results. The findings contribute to the theoretical framework in social presence research. We concluded that companies adopting self-service technology may consider the implementation of social presence in technology applications to support ethical consumer behaviour, but that more research is required to explore the mixed findings in the current study.<br/