From the University of South Australia press release:<\/p>\n
\nFrom Sinatra to Katy Perry, celebrities have long sung about the power of a smile<\/strong> — how it picks you up, changes your outlook, and generally makes you feel better. But is it all smoke and mirrors, or is there a scientific backing to the claim?<\/p>\n
\nGroundbreaking research from the University of South Australia confirms that the act of smiling can trick your mind into being more positive<\/strong>, simply by moving your facial muscles.<\/p>\n
With the world in crisis amid COVID-19, and alarming rises of anxiety and depression in Australia and around the world, the findings could not be more timely.<\/p>\n
The study, published in\u00a0Experimental Psychology<\/em><\/strong>, evaluated the impact of a covert smile on perception of face and body expressions. In both scenarios, a smile was induced by participants holding a pen between their teeth, forcing their facial muscles to replicate the movement of a smile.<\/p>\n
The research found that facial muscular activity not only alters the recognition of facial expressions but also body expressions<\/strong>, with both generating more positive emotions<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
Lead researcher and human and artificial cognition expert, UniSA’s Dr Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos says the finding has important insights for mental health.<\/p>\n
“When your muscles say you’re happy, you’re more likely to see the world around you in a positive way,” Dr Marmolejo-Ramos says.<\/p>\n
“In our research we found that when you forcefully practise smiling, it stimulates the amygdala<\/strong> — the emotional centre of the brain — which releases neurotransmitters to encourage an emotionally positive state.<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
The study replicated findings from the ‘covert’ smile experiment by evaluating how people interpret a range of facial expressions (spanning frowns to smiles) using the pen-in-teeth mechanism; it then extended this using point-light motion images (spanning sad walking videos to happy walking videos) as the visual stimuli.<\/p>\n
Dr Marmolejo-Ramos says there is a strong link between action and perception.<\/p>\n
“In a nutshell, perceptual and motor systems are intertwined when we emotionally process stimuli,” Dr Marmolejo-Ramos says.<\/p>\n
“A ‘fake it ’til you make it’ approach could have more credit than we expect.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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