An international study published in Psychological Science concluded that our thinking influences our perception by demonstrating that interpretation of emotion on a face influences our memory of it.
American, New Zealand and French researchers showed their subjects pictures of faces altered by computer to have ambiguous expressions. They asked them to think of these faces as angry or happy.
The participants were then shown a short film of faces that changed expression, from angry to happy. Then, they were asked to find the photo they had seen first.
The first interpretations influenced their memory, with the faces that were initially interpreted as angry were more angry in their memory than the faces that were originally designated as happy.