We even quite literally see more of what’s around us when we’re feeling happy. A recent University of Toronto study found that our mood can actually change how our visual cortex—the part of the brain responsible for sight—processes information.16 In this experiment, people were primed for either positivity or negativity, then asked to look at a series of pictures. Those who were put in a negative mood didn’t process all the images in the pictures—missing substantial parts of the background—while those in a good mood saw everything. Eye-tracking experiments have shown the same thing: Positive
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