Science

Making Faces

Athletes who have been blind since birth make the same expressions in triumph and defeat as sighted athletes, suggesting that these joyful or downcast smiles probably have roots in people's genes. Congenitally blind athletes "could not have possibly learned to produce those exact facial configurations from modeling the expressions of others," said lead author David Matsumoto of San Francisco State University. In the study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, he and Bob Willingham of the Center for Psychological Studies compared the expressions of 76 blind and 84 sighted judo players at the 2004 Paralympic and Olympic games.