Emotions vs Expressions

We know there are seven “basic” emotions, but aren’t there many more emotions? In fact, there is significant difference between what emotions we experience and how our faces are able to express these emotions. While mountains of previous research have settled on the existence of seven basic emotional expressions, ongoing research seeks to quantify exactly…

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Smelling Feelings?

If something smells awful, it’s because it’s disgusting, right? Maybe, but the truth is a little bit more complicated. A recent study found that our immediate olfactory reactions to stimuli are heavily influenced by the emotional reactions of other people. This suggests that when we smell something bad, we may be picking up on people’s…

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Trying to Buy Happiness

Could happiness be a purchasable commodity like any other? It has long been a cliché that we cannot simply buy happiness, but is this really true? In fact, several recent studies have begun to find striking correlations between wealth and happiness, but it isn’t that simple. For example, your purchased happiness seems to depend on…

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Recognizing Friend from Foe

Why does your face look so different from mine? This blog has spent a great deal of time talking about various methods of facial recognition, as well as its relationship to emotional recognition. An important part of this question rests in the vast diversity of human faces that we come into contact with. We need…

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