Brain Treats Emoticons as Real Faces: Study

Emoticons, first used in 1982, have become a part of us in the form of a language and a research has revealed that even our brains have started recognising them as if they were real human faces.

A study by Dr Owen Churches of Flinders University in Australia said now occipitotemporal cortex had the same response with both human faces and emoticons.

According to the study published in Social Neuroscience Journal, even our brains are understanding emoticons "as if they were our own living brethren".

So the next time you use emoticons in your communication, be careful while handling them as they are not just symbols, but much more than that. They represent real characters, feelings and emotions and they can either make or break a person's day.

Thus, it is proved that a smiley face lightens up a serious communication or an e-mail and the brain also feels happy to see it because now it is trained to do so.

In 1982, emoticon was documented for the first time by Professor Scott Fahlman.

Source: Medindia