“In our research we found that when you forcefully practice
smiling, it stimulates the amygdala, the emotional center of the
brain, which releases neurotransmitters to encourage an
emotionally positive state,” an artificial cognition expert
explains.
“For mental health, this has interesting implications. If we can
trick the brain into perceiving stimuli as ‘happy,’ then we can
potentially use this mechanism to help boost mental health.”
Social smiles use only the mouth muscles. True smiles, known as
Duchenne smiles, cause the eyes to twinkle and narrow and the
cheeks to rise.
“Spontaneously produced
facial expressions of emotion of both congenitally and
non-congenitally blind individuals are the same as for sighted
individuals in the same emotionally evocative situations.” said
study author David Matsumoto, PhD, of San Francisco State
University. “We also see that blind athletes manage their
expressions in social situations the same way sighted athletes
do.”
Seventeen studies provided evidence that blind and sighted
spontaneously produce the same pattern of facial expressions,
even if some variations can be found, reflecting facial and body
movements specific to blindness or differences in intensity and
control of emotions in some specific contexts. This suggests
that lack of visual experience seems to not have a major impact
when this behavior is because blind individuals cannot, from
birth or shortly thereafter, see others’ expressions; they
cannot learn to produce expressions by modeling.
Results provided evidence that visual experience is not
necessary to spontaneously produce adequate facial expressions
for basic emotions such as happiness, anger, and fear.
When our brains feel happy, endorphins are produced and neuronal
signals are transmitted to your facial muscles to trigger a
smile. When our smiling muscles contract, they fire a signal
back to the brain, stimulating our reward system, and further
increasing our level of happy hormones, or endorphins.