We’re all familiar with the smiley emoticon, and its power to add levity, flirtation, and occasionally passive-aggression to our texts, chats, and e-mails. But according to researchers, our brains have started to take the cluster of punctuation one step further and actually respond to it like a real face.
According to a recent study published in the journal Social Neuroscience, looking at faces crafted from colons and parentheses can trigger the same facial recognition response in the occipitotemporal parts of brain that takes place when we gaze into meatspace visages of other humans.
via Wired
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