title: Cultural background modulates how we look at other persons' gaze.
abstract: The current study investigated the role of cultural norms on the development of face-scanning. British and Japanese adults' eye movements were recorded while they observed avatar faces moving their mouth, and then their eyes toward or away from the participants. British participants fixated more on the mouth, which contrasts with Japanese participants fixating mainly on the eyes. Moreover, eye fixations of British participants were less affected by the gaze shift of the avatar than Japanese participants, who shifted their fixation to the corresponding direction of the avatar's gaze. Results are consistent with the Western cultural norms that value the maintenance of eye contact, and the Eastern cultural norms that require flexible use of eye contact and gaze aversion.
authors.affiliation: Birkbeck, University of London, UK.
authors.forename: Atsushi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Senju
authors.forename: Angélina
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vernetti
authors.forename: Yukiko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kikuchi
authors.forename: Hironori
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Akechi
authors.forename: Toshikazu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hasegawa
authors.forename: Mark H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Johnson
keywords: cross-cultural study; eye contact; eye-tracking; face scanning; gaze processing