An implicit assessment of the effect of artificial cheek raising: when your face smiles, the world looks nicer.

Experiments were conducted with 80 undergraduate participants (52 men and 28 women) to examine whether the sensation of having the cheeks lifted or pulled down would elicit different responses in an implicit association test. Implicit emotional responses were measured for two facial feedback conditions by utilizing a modified Affect Misattribution Procedure. The participants wore one of two types of simple devices designed to either raise or lower the cheeks, and rated neutral targets preceded by three types (positive, neutral, or negative) of prime photos.