Evidence map›Paper›PMID 37752242›Full record

ArticleScientific reports2023

Deepfake smiles matter less-the psychological and neural impact of presumed AI-generated faces.

Anna Eiserbeck, Martin Maier, Julia Baum, Rasha Abdel Rahman

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Scientific reports, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
4citing papers in PubMed
3.5field-weighted citation impact, top 7% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

4 citing papers in PubMed, 20 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Neural dynamics of mental state attribution to social robot faces.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025
    Article
  4. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Anna Eiserbeck *Department of Psychology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099, Berlin, Germany. anna.eiserbeck@hu-berlin.de.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3816-7511
Martin Maier *Department of Psychology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099, Berlin, Germany. martin.maier@hu-berlin.de.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4564-9834
Julia BaumDepartment of Psychology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099, Berlin, Germany.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1212-5244
Rasha Abdel RahmanDepartment of Psychology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099, Berlin, Germany.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8438-1570
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin · DE

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

High-quality AI-generated portraits ("deepfakes") are becoming increasingly prevalent. Understanding the responses they evoke in perceivers is crucial in assessing their societal implications. Here we investigate the impact of the belief that depicted persons are real or deepfakes on psychological and neural measures of human face perception. Using EEG, we tracked participants' (N = 30) brain responses to real faces showing positive, neutral, and negative expressions, after being informed that they are either real or fake. Smiling faces marked as fake appeared less positive, as reflected in expression ratings, and induced slower evaluations. Whereas presumed real smiles elicited canonical emotion effects with differences relative to neutral faces in the P1 and N170 components (markers of early visual perception) and in the EPN component (indicative of reflexive emotional processing), presumed deepfake smiles showed none of these effects. Additionally, only smiles presumed as fake showed enhanced LPP activity compared to neutral faces, suggesting more effortful evaluation. Negative expressions induced typical emotion effects, whether considered real or fake. Our findings demonstrate a dampening effect on perceptual, emotional, and evaluative processing of presumed deepfake smiles, but not angry expressions, adding new specificity to the debate on the societal impact of AI-generated content.

Indexed as

EmotionsSmilingAngerBrainHumansVisual Perception

Identifiers

PMID37752242
PMCPMC10522659
OpenAlexW4387048469

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.