To understand the mechanism behind reading emotions, let us think about the human face. Have you ever heard the saying "The eyes are the windows to the soul"? Maybe it is a bit unlikely to see someone's soul through their eyes (our eyes are not real windows after all), but one of the reasons why people use this saying is because the eyes are very important for understanding what other people are feeling. In fact, we can learn a lot about others from their facial expressions, and other people can tell a lot about us from our faces. Think about all the ways you can express emotions using just your face! Even babies seem to be born understanding the importance of faces, because as early as 9 minutes after birth, babies prefer to look at faces rather than any other objects. By the time they are 12 days old, babies can already imitate the facial gestures of adults. This ability is very important for their development because it helps them to later learn how to speak and to think.

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