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 facelike emojis can be confused. An emoji is a small picture that shows a feeling in computer messages. A smiley face emoji means happiness.

Misunderstanding emojis happens two ways.

First, there is the computer problem. A smiling face sent from one phone could show as a frown on another phone. This could happen if a message is sent from a Google phone to an Apple iPhone.

Then there is the people part. People understand emojis differently.

Hannah Miller studies how people work with technology. She wanted to study people and emojis.

Same Emoji Looks Different On Different Phones

Miller showed how an emoji with a grin and smiling eyes looks on 10 different phones. The emoji is different. Some show teeth. Some mouths are open. Some have open eyes. Others are closed, and so on.

Miller studied how emoji differences cause misunderstanding. She used five popular emojis. Then she asked people to describe the emoji in words. She also asked about their feelings when seeing it.

She found a lot of misunderstanding.

A Sad Face. Or Maybe A Happy One.

One example is the grinning face with smiling eyes. It is sent from one phone as a sad emoji. It is seen on another phone as a happy one.

Miller also found that people felt differently about the same emojis. This was true when there were two different phones used. It was also true when people had the same kind of phone. Miller was surprised that people sensed emojis differently.

People also described emojis differently.

When seeing an iPhone emoji of a person raising both hands to cheer, people described it as "stop" and "clap." People who saw the same emoji on a Google phone used "praise" and "hand."

Signaling Changes In Language

Some professors say that emoji use shows a change in language. Understanding its part in how people speak and write is important. It could change how new technology is made.

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

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

The study used more than 300 people in pairs. By using pairs, the scientists could study how feelings toward emojis would be different in two-way messaging.

More studies are being planned. Miller's team might study how people with different backgrounds feel about emojis. They might also study how emojis mix with words.

Miller wants to make life better for people.

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