Paula Niedenthal

Paula Niedenthal is a Professor in the Psychology Department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she leads the Niedenthal Emotions Lab. Her research bridges Social Psychology and Affective Neuroscience, focusing on how individuals process emotional information through facial expressions, with particular emphasis on smile authenticity and cultural influences.

Her work examines neural, cognitive, and sociocultural mechanisms underlying facial mimicry and eye gaze behaviors. Recent investigations explore smile functionality across cultures and contexts, using multimodal approaches including psychophysiology and behavioral experiments.

Dr. Niedenthal's publication record demonstrates consistent focus on emotion communication across diverse domains including political psychology, human-robot interaction, and developmental studies of facial perception.