title: Evidence and a computational explanation of cultural differences in facial expression recognition.
abstract: Facial expressions are crucial to human social communication, but the extent to which they are innate and universal versus learned and culture dependent is a subject of debate. Two studies explored the effect of culture and learning on facial expression understanding. In Experiment 1, Japanese and U.S. participants interpreted facial expressions of emotion. Each group was better than the other at classifying facial expressions posed by members of the same culture. In Experiment 2, this reciprocal in-group advantage was reproduced by a neurocomputational model trained in either a Japanese cultural context or an American cultural context. The model demonstrates how each of us, interacting with others in a particular cultural context, learns to recognize a culture-specific facial expression dialect.
authors.affiliation: Computer Science and Information Management, Asian Institute of Technology, Pathumthani, 12120 Thailand. mdailey@ait.ac.th
authors.forename: Matthew N
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: Dailey
authors.forename: Carrie
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Joyce
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Lyons
authors.forename: Miyuki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kamachi
authors.forename: Hanae
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ishi
authors.forename: Jiro
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gyoba
authors.forename: Garrison W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Cottrell
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D014481:United States; D055815:Young Adult