I was gonna wonder if the guy was chosen because of some issue with facial muscles, but there's a pic of a genuine smile, so everything seems to be functioning normally. Perhaps the facial muscles were numbed so that the sole muscular influence came from the stimulation and not from the subject himself...but that still calls into question the timing of the smile at the joke. These things make one wonder at how today's procedures will be viewed 100 years from now. "They used anesthesia rather than a Vulcan Nerve Pinch? Didn't they know what that does to internal organs? How barbaric!"
Pretty much. The precursor to "the enlightened ones" drilling holes in your head. And you thought piercing your ears was an ordeal! So in reading that Duchenne Smile article...were there any "carry forward" benefits, or did they just survive another day to consume more grant money?