'Smile test' for workers launched in Japan

A Japanese rail company has introduced a smile scanner to ensure its employees are emoting adequately, The Guardian reports.

According to the report, the Keihin Electric Express Railway Company's 500 employees are required to smile into a camera that’s connected to a computer that analyses their facial features.

Workers who aren’t beaming sufficiently receiving messages along the lines of: “Lift up your mouth corners”.

The helpful machine then prints out a customised ‘ideal smile’ that workers can refer to during the day when feeling gloomy.

While the scenario might sound like a joke to Australian workers (or it could be a hoax that’s tripping up the world’s media), it does suggest the importance of reading facial features.

To test your ability to decode people's emotions, check out this quick visual test.