Aug 14 2009
Facial expressions: East & West interpret them differently
So you’re watching two random people having a conversation…
image by whitebeard
Without eavesdropping on them, how do you know what they are talking about?
Without any other body language as input, how would you know if the discussion is about something surprising, fearful, funny, serious?
What is it about the facial expressions that would clue you in?
What do you look at: The eyes? The mouth? The entire face?
It turns out that your answer might depend on whether you’re a Western Caucasian or an East Asian (I take this to mean Chinese/Japanese/Oriental):
- If you tend to take in the entire face, chances are you’re a (Caucasian) Westerner.
- If you focus on the eyes, chances are you’re an (East) Asian.
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So what? you might ask. Well, it seems that as a result of this difference in “input” choice, some emotions are not as easily discerned by East Asians. This group tended to read the expression for “fear” as “surprise”, and “disgust” as “anger”, as discovered in a recent study. So in an ambiguous cross-cultural setting with language barriers, it’s foreseeable that misinterpretation of attitude and meaning would happen if one were to have just facial expressions to work with. (Let’s not start with the hand gestures! That’s another blog post right there!)
Interestingly enough, this face/mouth-vs-eyes difference has long been reflected in the differences between Western and Asian emoticons! Take a look:
| Emotion | Western | Asian |
| Happy | :) or : - ) | (^_^) |
| Surprise | :0 or : - o | (o.o) or (*_*) |
Do you see it? The main variable of Western emoticons is the mouth, while for the Asian ones, the eyes are the main focus.
Cool!
Me, I use the Western versions, maybe because that’s the style I first learnt. I do like how the Asian emoticons do not require a tilt of the head, tho.
What about you?
(H/T to Adam, whose tweet led me to the article that spawned this post)
Mike: Hi!! No worries, I’ve not been doing my rounds myself… RSS feeds are good but sometimes a proper visit is needed to prompt me to stop and comment
btw, in Malaysia, for Malays especially, there’s a lot of mouth covering going on too - perhaps a modesty thing about not showing one’s teeth? I wonder if this is part of an explanation why Asians in general focus on the eyes.