This is what the "grinning face with smiling eyes" emoji looks like on devices for each of these platforms.
Smiling eyes might be lying eyes.

Scientists have found that humanlike emojis can get lost in translation. This causes misunderstandings. People may not understand another person's feelings.

This happens two ways.

First, there’s the computer translation glitch. A smiling face could be sent from a Google phone and appear as a frown on the receiver’s Apple iPhone. It could also happen the other way around.

Then there’s the human part. People understand emojis differently.

Hannah Miller is part of a group at the University of Minnesota. Miller studies links between humans and computers. She investigates how to design technology to improve people's lives. Her team studied people and emojis.

Different Devices Display The Same Emoji Differently

Miller showed how the “grinning face with smiling eyes” appears across 10 different types of phones. The same emoji looks different on the different devices. Some show teeth. Some mouths are open. Some are just a straight line. Some have open eyes. Others are closed. The corners of the lips are turned up on some and down on others.

Miller studied how emoji differences cause miscommunication. The team used five of the 22 most popular humanlike emojis. They asked people to describe the emoji in words. They also asked about their feelings when seeing it.

Miller writes that they found many chances for miscommunication.

One example is the grinning face with smiling eyes. It is sent from an iPhone as a somewhat sad emoji. However, the study found it may be received on another type of phone as a fairly happy one.

The study team had people number the emojis by their feelings toward them. They gave them numbers from minus 5 to plus 5. Minus scores were negative, or sad. Positive scores were usually happy.

The average difference in rating between two phone types was greater than two points. This was true for almost half of the emojis tested.

That Emoji Could Mean Stop. Or Clap. Or Praise.

People also described emojis differently.

When seeing an Apple emoji of a person raising both hands to cheer, people described it as “stop” and “clap.” When describing Google’s form of the same emoji people used “praise” and “hand.”

Miller said they were surprised to find that people sense emojis differently.

Whether people saw an emoji the same or differently on their phone, the differences in their feelings are almost the same.

Scientists found that the sender and receiver will be off by about 2 points in feelings toward the emoji. This happened when the picture was sent across different phone types.

Even when comparing Apple iPhone to Apple iPhone feelings, the average difference is just under 2 points.

Some professors argue that emoji use shows a huge shift in language. Understanding its part in how humans speak and write is important, they say. It could change how technology is made in the future.

What You Sent Is Not What I Saw

The idea for the study started when Miller was on Facebook one day. She noticed that an emoji she saw on Facebook wasn’t the same as what she saw on her phone.

She didn't think people knew that emojis could be different depending on your phone.

Miller's partner on the study was Isaac Johnson. He said the students had fun with the study. “It really caught our imagination,” Johnson said.

The study involved pairings of 304 people. By using pairs the scientists could study how feelings toward emojis would be different in two-way messaging.

Miller and her team already are preparing more studies. They might study how people with different backgrounds feel about emojis and how emojis are used along with language. She thinks that might clear up the emoji communication problem.

The main goal is to make life better for humans, Miller said.

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