Watching comedy helps people detect faint smiles, a new study shows
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Researchers examine how positive moods induced by comedy viewing can help improve facial expression recognition
In everyday life, the ability to read facial expressions plays a vital role in social communication, as it reveals a speaker's underlying emotions, intentions, and psychological state. More importantly, accurately recognizing subtle signs of positive emotions can help build trust, enhance cooperation, and strengthen relationships. In this context, previous research has shown that facial expression recognition can be influenced by the observer’s emotional state. For example, people who are happy or in a positive mood tend to interpret facial expressions more positively than those in a negative mood. This phenomenon is linked to the mood-congruent memory effect, in which people are more likely to remember past events in accordance with their current mood.
This effect can also be influenced by a person’s individual emotional traits, such as depression or empathy. Some studies have shown that people with depression often have greater difficulty in recognizing happy facial expressions. Furthermore, the ability to recognize facial expressions can also be hindered by obstructions that hide key facial features, such as masks that cover much of the lower half of the face.
To explore these links, a research team led by Professor Hiroko Ichikawa from Institute of Arts and Sciences, Tokyo University of Science (TUS), Japan, and Lecturer Asami Oguro-Ando from University of Exeter Medical School, University of Exeter, United Kingdom, investigated how individuals in a positive emotional state perceive happy facial expressions compared to when they are in a neutral emotional state. “In daily life, facial expressions are not always clear. There are situations where it is important to be able to recognize a faint smile or similar subtle changes in expression,” explains Prof. Ichikawa. “Moreover, the mood and individual emotional tendencies of the person reading the expressions are also important. In this study, we thoroughly examined these relationships and also examined whether this relationship changes when key facial cues are hidden by a mask, which became an important part of everyday life and social interaction during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The team included master’s students Keisuke Adachi and Miyu Kashiwa, who completed their master’s degrees from the Department of Biological Science and Technology, Faculty of Advanced Engineering, TUS, along with Lecturer Asami Oguro-Ando from the University of Exeter Medical School, University of Exeter, United Kingdom; Professor Masato Okada from the Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Japan; and Dr. Masami Shimizu, who completed his doctoral degree at the same graduate school in 2025. Their study was published in the journal Scientific Reports on July 20, 2026.
For more information, please visit the Tokyo University of Science website:
https://www.tus.ac.jp/en/mediarelations/archive/20260803_9929.html
