A number of celebrities are being mocked on the Internet because of their unintentional expressions when their faces are not in motion. The condition, called Resting Bitch Face (RBF) or Bitchy Resting Face, gives certain people an appearance of being vaguely annoyed, a little judgy and even slightly bored.

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The condition has been observed to be on mostly women. Among celebrities with the Resting Bitch Face are British monarch Queen Elizabeth, actresses Kristen Stewart and Anna Kendrick, and former Spice Girl member Victoria Beckham. Among males, The Washington Post mentions rapper Kanye West who is in the thick of controversy over his Twitter war with fellow rapper Wiz Khalifa and former girlfriend Amber Rose.

In 2013, a RBF meme became viral on the Internet, prompting Jason Rogers and Abbe Macbeth, behavioural researchers of Noldus Information Technology, an international research and innovation company, to investigate. The two attempted to discover the expressionless faces of some people and faces that turn off others. They also sought to know what makes people classify a face as RBF.

For the study, the two used the Noldus FaceReader, a tool that is engineered to identify specific facial expressions based on a catalogue of over 10,000 human face index. It studies faces using a live camera, photo or video clip and then maps 500 points on the face. The software then analyses the face and identifies eight basic human emotions that it sees on the face. These are contempt, disgust, surprise, fear, anger, sadness, happiness and a neutral expression.

Macbeth assures that FaceReader is objective and not prone to human error, unlike most people when it comes to judging faces, reports CNN.

The two researchers first established a baseline by having the software assess faces that really did not have expressions with 97 percent neutrality although it provided a 3 percent allowance for small emotions such as sadness or surprise. When they plugged the photos of the celebrities, the emotions jumped to six percent, the bulk of the expression was from “contempt.”

To detect contempt, Rogers explains that they look for subtle signals such as a slight pull back on one side of the lip and small squint of the eyes. Those movements, though, would not lead to a smile, adds Macbeth.

The two attribute identification of more female celebrities as having RBF to increaed pressure by society for women to be happy and smile more often. Such was the case for Kendrick who was often reminded by her directors, when she was younger, to smile more often.

But Macbeth admits that having an RBF does not mean a person has some hidden contempt or unresolved issues that need to be addressed. She says there is no clear-cut answer yet for now.

Rogers and Macbeth says that having a facial analysis is not just for famous people. They invite ordinary folks to submit their facial photos for a FaceReader analysis at Jason@noldus.com.

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