When a baby smiles at you, it's almost impossible not to smile back. This spontaneous reaction to a facial expression is part ...

Facial expression control starts in a very old part of the nervous system. In the brain stem sits the facial nucleus, which ...

Every time we smile, grimace, or flash a quick look of surprise, it feels effortless, but the brain is quietly coordinating an intricate performance.

Facial expressions play a fundamental role in social communication. While it is well established that others’ expressions influence our behavior—such as approaching a smiling person or avoiding an ...

Humans are social beings, hardwired to navigate complex interactions through signals that communicate our internal states. Of all the channels we use to perceive emotion, the human face is arguably ...

Lay presentations of research on emotions often make two claims. First, they assert that all humans develop the same set of core emotions. This claim is called the “basic emotion approach” (Ekman, ...