GIFs and emojis aren't stupid

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    Business Spotlight 6/2017
    Smiley-Graffiti
    © mgkaya/istock.com

    GIF (graphics interchange format)GIF (Grafikformat für Bilder mit Farbpalette)GIFs and emojis are all over the internet. They show turd (ifml.)Kackhaufenturds with smiley faces and cats zu Tode erschrockenscared to deathscared to death by cucumberGurkecucumbers.

    Yet Sophie Scott, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London, considers them an important means of communication. “People look at emojis or GIFs and think ‘They’re stupid’, but they’re trying to to adress sth.etw. ansprechenaddress something,” she says in an article in issue 6/17 of Business Spotlight. “It’s all trying to to add sth. back inetw. hinzufügenadd back in the stuff that would be pretty effortless if you were face-to-facevon Angesicht zu Angesichtface-to-face.”

    The science of laughter

    Sophie Scott has studied human communication for decades, focusing on questions that have been neglected by others, such as: why do humans laugh? “I think it's fair to say that laughter is a topic that has been largely ignored in science,“ she says in a speech given in 2015 at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. According to Scott, many scientists perceive the subject as trivial, unworthy of scientific attention. However, laughter isn't just about amusement but a vitalwichtig, entscheidendvital element of human communication, as the neuroscientist explains in this short excerpt from a video on the science of laughter.

     

     

    Unlike laughter, emojis and GIFs are used in situations where face-to-face communication is impossible. But they serve a very similar purpose. A smiley can be the digital equivalent of a laugh. Emojis try to express the emotions humans can easily to convey sth.etw. übermittelnconvey by Gesichts-facialfacial expressions or tone of voice.

    Anyone who is interested in this topic can learn more in this year's Christmas lectureVorlesung, Vortraglecture at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, a charitable organizationWohltätigkeitsorganisationcharitable organization that promotes scientific education and research. Professor Sophie Scott has been chosen as this year's lecturerVortragsredner(in)lecturer and will be talking about “The language of life” and the urge to communicate. Tickets are already sold out, but the lecture will be recorded and made available on the Royal Institution's Youtube channel.

     

    Emoji memory

    Emoji memory game

    How good are you at reading emojis? Test yourself with this little memory game.

    Emojis

    For each emoji, there's a matching statement. Find the pairs.

     

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