Deepfake smiles matter less—the psychological and neural impact of presumed AI-generated faces
Source record
eiserbeck-2023-deepfake-smiles· 2023 · Scientific Reports
Evidence tier: B (peer-reviewed-journal) · Verification: verified-fulltext
Bottom line: Simply labelling a real smiling face as 'fake' made it rated less positive and removed its early neural smile effects (P1/N170/EPN), while increasing late, effortful processing (LPP); angry faces were unaffected by the label.
Citation
Anna Eiserbeck, Martin Maier, Julia Baum, Rasha Abdel Rahman (2023). Deepfake smiles matter less—the psychological and neural impact of presumed AI-generated faces. Scientific Reports, 13, 16111. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-42802-x
Verification entry (identifiers, resolvers, claims with source locations): /data/citations.json#eiserbeck-2023-deepfake-smiles
Study design
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Design | EEG (64 ch) belief-manipulation study: real face photographs labelled on screen as 'REAL' or 'FAKE' (cover story), valence rating on 100-point scale; label and emotion counterbalanced |
| Modality | image-face |
| Stimuli | 540 real photographs: 180 identities × angry/neutral/happy (RaFD, KDEF, FACES databases); no image was actually synthetic |
| Participants (N) | 30 |
| N detail | 21 female, 9 male; mean age 25.9; 7 datasets excluded and replaced |
| Topics | uncanny-valley, neural, labelling, emotion |
Results
| Metric | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Valence rating, happy faces | fake 73.12 vs real 74.97 (0-100) | label effect only for happy faces |
| Rating RT, happy faces | ≈1,366 ms fake vs ≈1,290 ms real | slower for presumed fakes |
| Overall valence | fake 49.80 vs real 50.78 | small |
| P1 / N170 / EPN smile effect (happy vs neutral) | present for real-labelled only | EPN for fake p=.066 |
| LPP smile effect | present for fake-labelled only | more positive LPP → more effortful evaluation |
| Angry vs neutral | N170, EPN, LPP effects for both labels | negative expressions unaffected by label |
Mechanism relevance
top-down-belief, dehumanization
Limitations
- Label × emotion interaction significant behaviourally but not in ERPs (authors' caveat)
- Small N
- Belief manipulation only; no actual synthetic faces
Cited in
- MR-0002: The Uncanny Valley and Synthetic Media: Does It Exist, What Causes It, and Have Deepfakes Crossed It?
Verification
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Status | verified-fulltext |
| Compiler confidence | high |
| Checked on | 2026-10-07 |
| Via | nature.com article page (open access); author list on page truncated |