London, February 10 : A new study has revealed that the human brain registers smiley face emoticon as a real facial expression.

The school of psychology researchers at the Australia' Flinders University in Adelaide found that when the series of punctuation used to create a smiley face were presented in the conventional digital communication manner, the pattern of brain activity was same as when someone sees a real smiling human face, the Independent reported.

However, when the emoticon was reversed or presented upright, no response was triggered.

Dr Owen Churches said that there is no innate neural response to emoticons that babies are born with and before 1982 it wasn't known that a smiley emoticon would activate face sensitive areas of the cortex. (ANI)