Apparently when we are happy the facial muscles on our right side are more active than those on the left side. Those change more often when unhappy.
So next time you are talking with someone important to you and you try to figure out how that person is feeling you might get so absorbed in figuring it out that the poor dear you are staring intently at may wonder if he has a piece of egg on his face.
When dogs are happy, their tails wag more to the right side of their rumps. When they have negative feelings, their tail wagging is biased to the left.
Its all about the “emotional asymmetry in the brain,” according Richard J. Davidson, director of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin - where he has pursued research on meditation, through his longtime friendship with the Dalai Lama.
Read the rest of the story in Sandra Blakeslee’s article in the Science section of The New York Times.
Discover more tantalizing tidbits about reading faces by reading Paul Ekman’s groundbreaking book, Emotions Revealed and Telling Lies.
