title: I feel your voice. Cultural differences in the multisensory perception of emotion.
abstract: Cultural differences in emotion perception have been reported mainly for facial expressions and to a lesser extent for vocal expressions. However, the way in which the perceiver combines auditory and visual cues may itself be subject to cultural variability. Our study investigated cultural differences between Japanese and Dutch participants in the multisensory perception of emotion. A face and a voice, expressing either congruent or incongruent emotions, were presented on each trial. Participants were instructed to judge the emotion expressed in one of the two sources. The effect of to-be-ignored voice information on facial judgments was larger in Japanese than in Dutch participants, whereas the effect of to-be-ignored face information on vocal judgments was smaller in Japanese than in Dutch participants. This result indicates that Japanese people are more attuned than Dutch people to vocal processing in the multisensory perception of emotion. Our findings provide the first evidence that multisensory integration of affective information is modulated by perceivers' cultural background.
authors: Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory, Tilburg University. akih.tanaka@gmail.com
authors: Akihiro
authors: A
authors: Tanaka
authors: Ai
authors: A
authors: Koizumi
authors: Hisato
authors: H
authors: Imai
authors: Saori
authors: S
authors: Hiramatsu
authors: Eriko
authors: E
authors: Hiramoto
authors: Beatrice
authors: B
authors: de Gelder
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D004644:Emotions; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D009426:Netherlands; D010465:Perception; D013067:Speech Perception; D014796:Visual Perception; D014831:Voice; D055815:Young Adult