ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses smiling as part of concerted multimodal action alongside gaze and talk. Asking what smiling does, it aims to build dialogue with psychological research that has mainly addressed facial experessions through the study of emotion. For example, such research suggests that autism is characterised by impairments in the capacity to comprehend facial expressions and emotions in photographs of faces. Sensitive situations can be also managed through gaze and facial expressions. The chapter examines recurrent instances where Niko shifts his gaze from the computer screen to his teacher, Katja Dindar, and smiles at her. His smiling will be examined sequentially, identifying the interactional environments where his smiling occurs, with gaze emerging as relevant. In order to fully understand Niko's smiling, the chapter focuses on neurotypical interactions and considers what people do when they speak to, gaze at and smile at a co-interactant. it illustrates case where a smiling response has been elicited in response to gaze and smile.
