Why a Smiley Face Doesn't Look like a Smiley Face

Everyone knows the classic yellow smiley face. How could they not? It's a universal symbol that's been around for decades.

It's been used in the Wal-Mart logo. It appears frequently on internet message boards, instant messenger, emails and text messages either as a so-called emoticon (a small colored icon representing an emotion) or in its written form, :). A blood-stained version even was the insignia used as the cover of the graphic novel Watchmen.

Despite its popularity, however, let's face it; does a smiley face look anything like what it's supposed to represent? It might be best to put this in perspective. If one looks at a real, live human face smiling or tries to draw it, it's a very complicated and nuanced thing. So, naturally, the famous smiley face is a simplification, like a cartoon version of the human face.

But there's a problem. It doesn't look anything like a human face. Not even remotely.

One just has to look at the smiley face for a moment and forget his or her preconceptions about what it's supposed to look like. A smiley face is a yellow circle with an upturned half-circle inside it, and two black dots above the half-circle like a rotated colon. The human face isn't round, doesn't have tiny black dots for eyes and it definitely isn't yellow...well, as long as you're healthy.

So why do we see a face? Is it only because we're so trained to pretending it's a face that we've somehow convinced ourselves of this obvious untruth, or is there something more to it?

Well, think about it. Aren't we always finding faces where they're not?

It seems as if the human eyes have a natural inclination to find faces in strange shapes. After all, who hasn't stared at the textures in the ceiling, the lines of a tree or the patterns on a block of wood and sworn that he or she could see a face in it, no matter how obscure? Isn't that the real reason there's a face on Mars, or a man on the moon? And bringing the topic back to the simplification of cartoon characters - come on, Homer Simpson doesn't look human. Neither does Dilbert, or Stewie in Family Guy.

There isn't a face in every object. But as long as we keep looking for faces, we'll always find them.