Happy or sad ? Emotional cues vary by culture

Culture is a huge factor in determining whether we look someone in the eye or the kisser to interpret facial expressions, according to a new study.

For instance, in Japan, people tend to look to the eyes for emotional cues, whereas Americans end to look to the mouth, says researcher Masaki Yuki, a behavioral scientist Japanese Guy at Hokkaido University in Japan.

"Their smiles looked strange to me," Yuki told LiveScience about American celebrities. "They opened their mouths too widely, and raised the corners of their mouths in an exaggerated way."

"Japanese people tend to shy away from overt displays of emotion, and rarely smile or frown with their mouths" - Yuki said

As Yuki predicted, the Japanese gave more weight to the emoticons’ eyes when gauging emotions, whereas Americans gave more weight to the mouth. For example, the American subjects rated smiling emoticons with sad-looking eyes as happier than the Japanese subjects did.

Interestingly, however, both the Americans and Japanese tended to rate faces with so-called "happy" eyes as neutral or sad.

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