The Vividness of the Happy Face

An emerging literature reveals that happy faces are vivid: They automatically and rapidly engage cognitive processing at many different levels. They do this in part because their form has evolved to take advantage of preexisting efficiencies in visual perception. In addition to "happy advantages" at the earliest stages of perception, perceivers add their own benefits, with both attentional and memory mechanisms appearing to favor happy faces. These effects exist because for humans, prosocial communication is critical. Coevolution has sculpted both the signaler and the receiver to enhance the efficiency of this communication as a way to undergird our highly social nature.