In a study with functional magnetic resonance imaging, Professors Takashi Tsukiura and Roberto Cabeza, from the Center for Cognitive Neurosciences at Duke University (USA), recently demonstrated that we remember better the names of people who smile . In their experiments, they asked a group of volunteers to look at pictures of smiling people and serious people, followed by their first names. Images of the subjects' brains revealed that the orbitofrontal cortex and hippocampus showed more activity when they learned and remembered the names of the smiling people .
This is because we are more sensitive to positive social signals. Our mirror neurons "want us to remember people who have been nice to us, in case we need to interact with them in the future," Tsukiura suggests. "Memory processes can improve when we receive a reward, and social cues such as a smiling face are often very rewarding for humans," the researchers clarify in the journal Neuropsychologia .
In fact, previous studies reveal that smiling faces are identified earlier than other facial expressions . And that people who smile seem more honest, more attractive and kinder to us (even if they are not).
