Behavioral Study Suggests Japanese and Americans Look at Faces Differently

LiveScience.com reports that research by a Japanese behavioral scientist strongly suggests that how people look at faces is culturally determined.

Masaki Yuki of Hokkaido University was inspired by the different styles of emoticons in the United States ( :-) and :-( ) and in Japan ( (^_^) and (;_;) ).

Prof. Yuki's research indicates that Japanese people tend to take emotional cues from faces by concentrating attention on the eyes, while Americans tend to look at mouths.

(Those of you who have taken the "Spot the Fake Smile" test should now be aware that involvement of facial muscles around the eyes is the giveaway of a real smile.

Yuki's finding that people of different cultures read faces differently is a challenge to the underpinnings of Paul Ekman's Facial Action Coding System. Ekman asserts that the emotional meaning of facial expression is pan-cultural. If people of different cultures perceive facial meaning differently, though, how can it be said at all that the inner emotional meanings are the same?

I'll leave that one for the semioticists to duke out, and move on to the takeaway for poker players: Sunglasses matter.

(via Boing Boing)