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This study tests whether reinforcement learning can reshape such category biases. Experiment 1 (N=40) replicates the Happy Face Advantage: faster recognition of happiness as happiness than anger as anger for White–Dutch faces, with no advantage for Moroccan–Dutch faces. Experiments 2–3 (Ntotal=144) use a go/no-go task to align actions with rewards and punishments, and then measure emotion recognition. Results show reinforcement learning alters emotion recognition: instead of the usual category-by-valence interaction, a consistent main effect of valence emerges, suggesting (in)action-reward alignment drives changes.",{"@graph":69,"@context":123},[70,84,106],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/reshaping-the-happy-face-advantage-with-reinforcement-learning/156896/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/reshaping-the-happy-face-advantage-with-reinforcement-learning/156896.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Cart","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-16","2026-08-29",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":105},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",12,{"@type":107,"mainEntity":108},"FAQPage",[109,115,119],{"name":110,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":112},"What is the Happy Face Advantage described in the study?","Question",{"text":113,"@type":114},"People tend to recognize positive emotional expressions more quickly than negative ones. The paper focuses on how this advantage appears for different social categories in emotion recognition tasks.","Answer",{"name":116,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":117},"How does reinforcement learning change emotion recognition in this research?",{"text":118,"@type":114},"Participants learn, via a reinforcement learning go/no-go task, to act toward images associated with rewards and withhold action for images associated with punishments. After this training, emotion recognition results show systematic changes.",{"name":120,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":121},"What pattern do the results show compared with prior findings?",{"text":122,"@type":114},"Instead of the commonly observed interaction between social category and expression valence, the study consistently finds a main effect of valence on emotion recognition.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":125,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":127,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":129,"site_id":62},156896,1787968589,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":132},{"doc_id":129,"user_id":133,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":134,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":135,"file_id":136,"file_url":137,"file_type":138,"file_size":139,"view_count":105,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":140,"language":141,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":142,"faqs":143,"seo_title":144,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":130,"read_time":145,"preview_page_count":4},18829141979164,"https://eur-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_6f874abed73319feea01a86fa6f0fab8","Cognition and  \nEmotion  \nISSN: 0269-9931 (Print) 1464-0600 (Online) Journal [homepage: ](homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/pcem20)[www.tandfonline.com/journals/pcem20](homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/pcem20)  \nReshaping the happy face advantage with reinforcement learning  \nTjits van Lent, Harm Veling, Rob W. Holland, Erik Bijleveld & Gijs bert Bijlstra  \nTo cite this article: Tjits van Lent, Harm Veling, Rob W. Holland, Erik Bijleveld & Gijs bert Bijlstra (14 Oct 2025): Reshaping the happy face advantage with reinforcement learning, Cognition and  \nEmotion, DOI: 10. 1080/02699931 .2025.2568553  \nTo link to this article: [https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2025.2568553](https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2025.2568553)  \n© 2025 The Author(s) . Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group  \n\n|  View supplementary material  |  |\n| --- | --- |\n|  Published online: 14 Oct 2025. |  |\n|  Submit your article to this journal  |  |\n| | Article views: 226 |\n| | View related articles  |\n|  View Crossmark data |  |\n\nFull Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at [https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=pcem20](https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=pcem20)  \nCOGNITION AND EMOTION  \n[https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2025.2568553](https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2025.2568553)  \nReshaping the happy face advantage with reinforcement learning  \nTjits van Lent  a*, Harm Veling  a, b, Rob W. Hollanda, Erik Bijleveld  a and Gijsbert Bijlstra  aaBehavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; bConsumption and Healthy Lifestyles, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands  \nABSTRACT  \nRecognising emotional expressions is important for successful social interactions. Prior research has demonstrated that emotion recognition is influenced by evaluative associations people have with different social categories. Here, we systematically investigate whether reinforcement learning can modify social category biases in emotion recognition. Previous research has shown that reinforcement learning is a promising method for altering evaluative associations. In Experiment 1 (N = 40), we replicated that the Happy Face Advantage is influenced by social category membership. People were faster at recognising happiness as happiness than anger as anger for White – Dutch faces, while no difference was found for Moroccan – Dutch faces. In Experiments 2–3 (Ntotal = 144), we used a reinforcement learning go/no-go task, in which people learned to act to images of Moroccan – Dutch faces to obtain rewards and to not act to images of White – Dutch faces to avoid punishments before participating in the emotion recognition task. Results show that reinforcement learning influences emotion recognition. Instead of the commonly observed interaction effect between social category and expression valence ([e.g. in](e.g. in) Experiment 1 and previous work), we consistently found a main effect of valence on emotion recognition. These findings suggest that aligning (in)actions with rewards/punishments changes emotion recognition.  \nARTICLE HISTORY  \nReceived 11 March 2025 Revised 25 August 2025 Accepted 25 September 2025  \nKEYWORDS  \nEmotion recognition; facial expressions; prejudice; social categorisation; instrumental learning  \nIn everyday life, it is important to recognise emotional expressions of others. Through emotional expressions, people can show how they feel about specific situations, demonstrating their strong communicative function. For example, happiness indicates to others that they can approach, while anger may signal that others are better off keeping their distance (Adams et al., 2006; Marsh et al., 2005) . The ease with which emotional expressions are recognised is important for successful social interactions (Erickson & Schulkin, 2003) . For example, people who are better at recognising emotional expressions tend to  \nexhibit","cbCaimd9fpjPsLyb","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaimd9fpjPsLyb","pdf",1684599,18,"English","# Abstract\n# Introduction\n## Emotion recognition in social interactions\n## Category biases and the Happy Face Advantage\n# Experiments\n## Experiment 1: Happy Face Advantage and category membership\n## Experiments 2–3: reinforcement learning go/no-go procedure\n# Results and implications","[{\"question\":\"What is the Happy Face Advantage described in the study?\",\"answer\":\"People tend to recognize positive emotional expressions more quickly than negative ones. The paper focuses on how this advantage appears for different social categories in emotion recognition tasks.\"},{\"question\":\"How does reinforcement learning change emotion recognition in this research?\",\"answer\":\"Participants learn, via a reinforcement learning go/no-go task, to act toward images associated with rewards and withhold action for images associated with punishments. After this training, emotion recognition results show systematic changes.\"},{\"question\":\"What pattern do the results show compared with prior findings?\",\"answer\":\"Instead of the commonly observed interaction between social category and expression valence, the study consistently finds a main effect of valence on emotion recognition.\"}]","Reshaping the happy face advantage with reinforcement learning | PDF",45]