The Provine et. al article about :) ;) :( emotional expression was very interesting. :) The study itself was pretty standard, :-/ but they got extremely :-D robust results. (which were semi-expected?) But what I really :-))) enjoyed about it...
At the beginning of Provine et al. the punctuation effect is described which is used to help explain laughter in conversations as being "filled with laughter." The difference in speech then as they suggest, is that laughter is not...
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