教你讀懂東、西方人的臉部情緒

　　A new study suggests that people from different cultures read facial EXPRESSIONS differently.

　　最新研究顯示，不同文化背景的人們對臉部表情的理解存在不同。

　　East Asian participants in the study focused mostly on the eyes, but those from the West scanned the whole face.

　　參與調查的東亞人主要注意的是眼部表情，而西方人則會觀察整個臉部。

　　In the research carried out by a team from Glasgow University, East Asian observers found it more difficult to distinguish some facial EXPRESSIONS.

　　這項由格拉斯哥大學科研小組進行的研究顯示，來自東亞的觀察者更難分辨某些臉部表情的不同。

　　The work published in Current Biology journal challenges the idea facial EXPRESSIONS are universally understood.

　　這項研究報告已經(jīng)發(fā)表在《當代生物學》雜志上，并對面部表情乃世界共通這一想法提出了異議。

　　In the study, East Asians were more likely than Westerners to read the EXPRESSION for "fear" as "surprise", and "disgust" as "anger".

　　研究顯示，與西方人相比，東亞人更容易把“恐懼”的表情錯認為“驚訝”，把“厭惡”看成“憤怒”。

　　The researchers say the confusion arises because people from different cultural groups observe different parts of the face when interpreting EXPRESSION.

　　研究人員認為，產(chǎn)生這樣的混淆是因為來自不同文化背景的人在理解表情時所觀察的臉部部位不同。

　　East Asians participants tended to focus on the eyes of the other person, while Western subjects took in the whole face, including the eyes and the mouth.

　　東亞人特別注重眼部神情，而西方人則觀察整個臉部，包括眼睛和嘴巴。

　　Co-author, Dr Rachael Jack, from the University of Glasgow, said: "Interestingly, although the eye region is ambiguous, subjects tended to bias their judgements towards less socially-threatening emotions--surprise rather than fear, for example.

　　格拉斯哥大學的雷切爾·杰克博士是這份研究報告的作者之一。她說：“有趣的是，盡管眼睛部位傳達的信息比較曖昧，但是研究對象們在做出判斷時往往傾向于那些對社會威脅性更小的情緒表達，比如說驚訝，而不是恐懼。”

　　"This perhaps highlights cultural differences when it comes to the social acceptability of emotions."

　　“在社會可接受的情緒方面，這可能突出了不同文化的差異。”

　　The team showed 13 Western Caucasians and 13 East Asians a set of standardised images depicting the seven main facial EXPRESSIONS: happy, sad, neutral, angry, disgusted, fearful and surprised.

　　研究小組向13名西方白種人和13名東亞人展示了七張臉部表情標準圖：包括高興、悲傷、無表情、憤怒、厭惡、恐懼和驚訝。

　　They used eye movement trackers to monitor where the participants were looking when interpreting the EXPRESSIONS.

　　研究人員使用了眼動跟蹤來觀察實驗人員理解臉部表情時聚焦的部位。

　　A computer program given the same information from the eyes as the East Asian observers was similarly unable to distinguish between the emotions of disgust and anger, and fear and surprise.

　　東亞觀察者的眼動跟蹤信息在電腦程序中分析后，同樣無法分辨“厭惡”和“憤怒”、“恐懼”和“驚訝”。

　　The paper states that the Eastern participants used a culturally specific decoding strategy that was inadequate to reliably distinguish the universal facial EXPRESSIONS of fear and disgust.

　　報告聲稱，因為東亞人會使用特定的文化“解碼”來分析臉部表情，而這種技巧對于分辨“恐懼”和“厭惡”的表情不太適用。

　　It concluded that information from the eyes is often ambiguous and confusing in these EXPRESSIONS, with consequences for cross-cultural communication and globalisation.

　　報告總結，由于眼部表情通常模棱兩可，因此會對上述這些表情產(chǎn)生混淆，以至于在不同文化交流以及全球化交流中產(chǎn)生影響。

　　The researchers also point out that this difference in perception is reflected in the differences between Eastern and Western emoticons--the typographical characters used to convey emotions in e-mails.

　　研究人員同時指出，這種知覺差異也反應在東西方人使用的符號表情中。符號表情通常在電子郵件中使用，以表達書寫者的情緒。

　　The Eastern emoticons are not only the right way up but focus on the eyes, whilst in the West the mouth is important.

　　東方人的符號表情不僅表達更正確，而且集中在眼部神情，而西方人的表達方式則更注重嘴巴。

　　附：東西方符號表情表達方式

　　高興

　　西方 :-)

　　東方 (^_^)

　　悲傷

　　西方 :-(

　　東方(;_;) 或 (T_T)

　　驚訝

　　西方 :-o

　　東方 (o.o)