<p>According to German researchers, the simple act of smiling takes years off a person's age. It is likely we consider people who are happy as being attractive in other ways - including being younger than they actually are, Daily Mail reported.<br /><br />Temporary wrinkles caused due to grinning also make it more difficult to judge a person's age and so may lead to those doing the guessing to err on the side of caution.<br /><br />Manuel Voelkle, of the Max Planck Institute in Berlin, asked over 150 men and women of different ages to judge the ages of the faces in more than 1,000 photographs.<br /><br />He concluded: "Facial expressions have a substantial impact on accuracy.<br /><br />"Relative to other facial expressions, the age of neutral faces was estimated most accurately, while the ages of those displaying happy expressions was most likely under-estimated."<br /><br />The study also revealed that the older faces are more difficult to judge than the younger ones.<br /><br />The age of those doing the judging was also important. In general, elderly people overestimated the age of those photographed, while younger people shaved a year or two off.<br /><br />Women also fared better, with older female faces estimated on average to be three years younger than their male equivalents, the journal Psychology and Aging reports.</p>
<p>According to German researchers, the simple act of smiling takes years off a person's age. It is likely we consider people who are happy as being attractive in other ways - including being younger than they actually are, Daily Mail reported.<br /><br />Temporary wrinkles caused due to grinning also make it more difficult to judge a person's age and so may lead to those doing the guessing to err on the side of caution.<br /><br />Manuel Voelkle, of the Max Planck Institute in Berlin, asked over 150 men and women of different ages to judge the ages of the faces in more than 1,000 photographs.<br /><br />He concluded: "Facial expressions have a substantial impact on accuracy.<br /><br />"Relative to other facial expressions, the age of neutral faces was estimated most accurately, while the ages of those displaying happy expressions was most likely under-estimated."<br /><br />The study also revealed that the older faces are more difficult to judge than the younger ones.<br /><br />The age of those doing the judging was also important. In general, elderly people overestimated the age of those photographed, while younger people shaved a year or two off.<br /><br />Women also fared better, with older female faces estimated on average to be three years younger than their male equivalents, the journal Psychology and Aging reports.</p>