The American Psychological Association (APA) recently highlighted news coverage of studies on how athletes express the thrill of Olympic victory or the agony of Olympic defeat. Specifically, its website linked to a Washington Post piece titled, “Why bronze medalists are happier than silver medalists.”

David Matsumoto, the focus of the piece, is a psychology professor at San Francisco State University and former Olympic judo coach. He uses the moment of Olympic victory or defeat to study the question of how human beings express emotions — specifically, which expressions are universal, and which are culturally specific. In a 2009 study published in the journal Psychological Science, he and colleagues examined the facial expressions of 84 judo competitors from 35 countries in the 2004 Athens Olympics.

“In the moments after the athlete won or lost, they made facial expressions of joy, disappointment, surprise and other emotions that were remarkably consistent across countries and cultures. But as the seconds ticked by and the athletes realized they were on the world stage with many cameras pointed at them, their expressions changed in ways that did vary by culture,” reports the Washington Post.

Professor Matsumoto followed this study up with another one considering another natural experiment: comparing the expressions in the moment of victory of blind athletes in the Paralympics — including those congenitally blind from birth.