Posts tagged facial expression
Articles and news from the latest research reports.
Computer Scientists Present Smile Database
What exactly happens to your face when you smile spontaneously, and how does that affect how old you look? Computer scientists from the University of Amsterdam’s (UvA) Faculty of Science recorded the smiles of hundreds of visitors to the NEMO science centre in Amsterdam, thus creating the most comprehensive smile database ever. The results can be seen via the link below. The research was conducted as part of the project Science Live, sponsored by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NOW) and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).
Smile Database: http://www.uva-nemo.org/
Grin and bear it — smiling facilitates stress recovery
In a study forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, psychological scientists Tara Kraft and Sarah Pressman of the University of Kansas investigate the potential benefits of smiling by looking at how different types of smiling, and the awareness of smiling, affects individuals’ ability to recover from episodes of stress.
"Age old adages, such as ‘grin and bear it’ have suggested smiling to be not only an important nonverbal indicator of happiness but also wishfully promotes smiling as a panacea for life’s stressful events," says Kraft. "We wanted to examine whether these adages had scientific merit; whether smiling could have real health-relevant benefits."
A better judge of character with oxytocin nasal spray?
In other contexts, oxytocin is already well-known as the “bliss hormone”. The hormone is secreted upon stimulation by touch and is known to result in a feeling of calm and physical relaxation. It is also used to induce labour in childbirth and as an aid for women experiencing difficulties in breastfeeding.
Oxytocin has also been referred to as a “mindreading” hormone. Recent research findings show that there may be some truth to these claims – although the mindreading component may have a more down-to-earth explanation.