英国一项最新研究显示，东方人和西方人在辨别面部表情上存在差异，这可能导致对相同面部表情的不同理解。
英国格拉斯哥大学的研究人员8月13日在美国《当代生物学》（Current Biology）杂志上报告说，他们请13名西方人和13名东方人辨识7种基本面部表情的图片。结果发现，西方人“害怕”的表情在东方人看来是“惊讶”；西方人“厌恶”的表情在东方人看来是“愤怒”。
研究人员认为，这可能是因为东方人和西方人对脸部表情的解读方式不同：西方人会关注对方的整个面部表情；而东方人则主要关注对方的眼睛，这种差异可能源于东西方文化上的差别。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
Current Biology, 13 August 2009 doi:10.1016/j.cub.2009.07.051
Cultural Confusions Show that Facial Expressions Are Not Universal
Rachael E. Jack1,2,,,Caroline Blais3,Christoph Scheepers1,Philippe G. Schyns1,2andRoberto Caldara1,2,,
1 Department of Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QB, Scotland, UK
2 Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging (CCNi), University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QB, Scotland, UK
3 Départment de Psychologie, Université de Montréal, Montreal, PQ H3C 3J7, Canada
Central to all human interaction is the mutual understanding of emotions, achieved primarily by a set of biologically rooted social signals evolved for this purposefacial expressions of emotion. Although facial expressions are widely considered to be the universal language of emotion [1,2,3], some negative facial expressions consistently elicit lower recognition levels among Eastern compared to Western groups (see [4] for a meta-analysis and [5,6] for review). Here, focusing on the decoding of facial expression signals, we merge behavioral and computational analyses with novel spatiotemporal analyses of eye movements, showing that Eastern observers use a culture-specific decoding strategy that is inadequate to reliably distinguish universal facial expressions of fear and disgust. Rather than distributing their fixations evenly across the face as Westerners do, Eastern observers persistently fixate the eye region. Using a model information sampler, we demonstrate that by persistently fixating the eyes, Eastern observers sample ambiguous information, thus causing significant confusion. Our results question the universality of human facial expressions of emotion, highlighting their true complexity, with critical consequences for cross-cultural communication and globalization.
