Brain Treats Emoticons as Real Faces: Study

It’s time we use emoticons carefully as a study says that now our brains are trained to treat them as real human faces and emotions.

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.

Emoticons - The Teenage Language of Love for Youngsters :D
The Shakespeare of yore with lines such as 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate' are no longer in vogue, apparently.

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.

Intact Areas, Showing Flexible Nature of Memory Compensate Damage to Prefrontal Cortex
If a part of the brain controlling movement or sensation or language is lost because of a stroke or injury, other parts of the brain can take over the lost function, previous research has shown.

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

Source-Medindia

New Wearable Book Could Let You Feel Emotions from a Fiction
Researchers at MIT have reportedly developed a wearable technology that could allow readers to actually feel the emotions and physical state of characters from a fiction book.

Brain Depression
Interactive section of Medindia provides information about chemistry of Brain depression