This is the first study to investigate the effects of participants’ and stimulus faces’ cultural background on eye contact perception. Therefore, the effects of approach- and avoidance-related emotions might have canceled each other out, which might have led to the absence of a biased eye contact perception for Japanese vs. Finnish faces among Japanese participants. But, that window may be saying different things in different cultures. It’s just that different people have unique tastes in what they find attractive. In general, when feeling negative or positive emotions, the Japanese suppress or neutralize their facial expressions more than Americans [44]. I don’t mean that you have to think someone is hot to look at them. The Finnish and Japanese participants were recruited from the student populations of the University of Tampere in Finland and Kyoto University in Japan, respectively. Consistent with this, an analysis based on the point of subjective equality revealed that Finnish participants accepted greater deviations from the true eye contact (0°) as directed at them for Japanese faces than for Finnish faces. The cultural background of the face had no effect on Japanese observers’ judgments because Japanese participants rated Finnish faces as more intense than Japanese faces in both approach-related anger and avoidance-related fear. In many areas, consistent contact may be negatively viewed. Further, faces with a direct gaze were rated as sadder than those with an averted gaze by Japanese but not Finnish participants. In many cultures it is very rude to look someone directly in the eyes if they are older or have a higher status than you. here. The sequence of events for a single stimulus presentation trial is shown in Fig. Although not illustrated, note that the experiment also included gazes averted at 4° and 8° to the left and right. Stimulus presentation and data acquisition were controlled by presentation software (Neurobehavioral System) running on a Windows computer (Microsoft). The participants in the study consisted of 30 Finnish and 30 Japanese young adults, most of whom were female. These findings suggest that Western Europeans may be more motivated to search for and detect others’ direct gaze during social interaction, and because of their considerable visual experience in perceiving eye contact, they might be less biased in considering slightly averted gazes to be self-directed. The cultural background of the stimulus faces had no effect on the Japanese participants’ judgments. Finally, participants were also asked to complete questionnaires investigating their degree of autistic traits and social phobia. Yes, in some cultures (and with some animals, too) it is considered disrespectful and “challenging” to look the other in the eye and not break contact (or even to look in the eyes at all), and in other cultures, such as most of North America, it is considered somehow rude, disrespectful or evasive to avoid looking another in the eyes at all. In some countries, such as Japan and Korea, intense eye contact is often considered as being aggressive and disrespectful. This suggests that Finnish participants have a smaller bias toward considering a slightly averted gaze as directed at them for Finnish than for Japanese faces. Frequently glancing away from the person or refusing to make contact can signal low self-confidence, disinterest and a suspicious character. In Australia (except in some aboriginal cultures) it is considered very rude NOT to look someone in the eye when they are talking to you or telling you off. This may be explained by Westerners experiencing more eye contact in their daily life leading to larger visual experience of gaze perception generally, and to more accurate perception of eye contact with people from their own cultural background particularly. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Finnish participants gave faces higher ratings for pleasantness than Japanese participants. The stimuli were presented on 17-inch CRT monitors (screen resolution: 1024 × 768 pixels; refresh rate: 75 Hz). That... Are your photos currently backed up? The subjective evaluations of the emotional expressions on stimulus faces provide another way to interpret the effects of the participants’ and stimulus faces’ cultural backgrounds on eye contact perception. Your eyes are the window to your soul – or so it’s said. Click through the PLOS taxonomy to find articles in your field. When the sphericity assumption was violated, probability values were evaluated with Greenhouse–Geisser adjustments for degrees of freedom. Maintaining eye contact during social interaction is a more important principle for Western Europeans than for East Asians [26]. Go bold. 4). It should be noted that this study has some limitations. We presented Finnish and Japanese faces with neutral expressions and various gaze directions (2°, 4°, 6°, 8°, 10° to the left and right, and 0°) to the participants. Within each block, a given face remained on the screen while it was being rated along each scale in turn. With more people working... You may be wondering what is new in mac os big sur, as many people are.... Moore's Law was one of the most prescient predictions of the twentieth century. The gaze direction judgment task was constructed as a three-factor design with the cultural background of the participant (Finnish and Japanese) as an independent-measures factor, and the cultural background of the face stimuli (Finnish and Japanese) and gaze angle (0°, 2°, 4°, 6°, 8°, and 10°) as repeated-measures factors. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. In many cultures, however, including Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern, and Native American, eye contact is thought to be disrespectful or rude, and lack of eye contact does not mean that a … Yes The results of the dominance and warmth ratings are shown in Table 3. Finnish and Japanese participants were asked to judge whether Finnish and Japanese faces were “looking at me” or “not looking at me.” The stimulus faces’ gaze direction was either direct or averted to a varying degree from the direct gaze. Measurement is a part of everyday life. The more your kids stay online, the higher are their chances of encountering dangerous people. If you look at someone in the eye, while speaking to him or her, you come across as confident, trustworthy and interested. The results also revealed cultural differences in the perception of emotion from neutral faces that could also contribute to the bias in eye contact perception. However, when observers were asked to judge whether they felt another person’s gaze was directed at them, they accepted considerable deviations from the “true” (direct) eye contact as a direct gaze [18–21]. In some parts of India, people tilt their head from … To familiarize participants with the task procedure, five practice trials preceded the experimental trials. For the warmth ratings, there was only a significant main effect for participant’s cultural background (F (1, 58) = 7.85, p = .007), indicating that Finnish participants rated faces as being warmer than did Japanese participants. But, that window may be saying different things in different cultures. 1. Eye contact for Western cultures is more important than East Asian cultures. In the present study, Finnish participants rated Japanese faces as expressing more approach-related anger and less avoidance-related fear and sadness than they rated Finnish faces. In many areas, consistent … There is simply something a great deal of fun about internet slots. The pattern of results from the emotion-rating task might be related to differences in Finnish and Japanese facial structures. 2. Half of the faces (both Japanese and Finnish) had their gaze averted to the left, while the other half had it averted to the right. In today's day, it comes as no surprise that LED products, such as an outdoor LED screen are becoming more and more popular in... For your customers to always keep abreast of the news about your company, use emails. Yes https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118094.g001. We suggest that because the Finnish (Westerners) demonstrate more eye contact in their daily lives than the Japanese (East Asians), this leads to better eye contact discrimination and specifically so for faces of their own culture. Furthermore, it has been shown that a direct gaze enhances various social cognitive functions such as face memory [12], joint attention [13], and empathy [14]. ]; the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science [grant number 11J05000 and Institutional Program for Young Researcher Overseas Visits to S.U.]. After you've tried them share them with your friends! Videos are one of the easiest ways to publicize your company and the products. Citation: Uono S, Hietanen JK (2015) Eye Contact Perception in the West and East: A Cross-Cultural Study. Empirical studies have demonstrated that faces making eye contact are detected quickly and processed preferentially (i.e., the eye contact effect). For the pleasantness ratings, ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of participants’ cultural background (F (1, 58) = 4.76, p = .033). However, for the anger and dominance ratings, both groups of participants gave higher ratings to faces from cultures other than their own. There was also a significant interaction between emotion and stimulus faces’ cultural background (F (6, 174) = 11.21, p < .001). For more information about PLOS Subject Areas, click Get the advice you need to … Here’s a quick trip around the world and what eye contact means in the various places and cultures. Finnish observers could have been prone to perceive a slightly averted gaze on Finnish … These findings suggest that the perception of eye contact is not categorical but follows a graded function. Finnish observers could have been prone to perceive a slightly averted gaze on Finnish … This study investigated the cultural differences in eye contact perception among Finnish (European) and Japanese (East Asian) individuals. USA. Depending on which cultural situation an individual is in, eye contact gives out different signals. For example, observers are more likely to perceive an averted gaze as direct when the face stimulus expresses a happy or angry emotion than when it shows a neutral expression [31–34]. These studies have shown that humans can quite accurately discern where a person is looking [15,16]. Finnish participants in this study had seen a larger number of Finnish than Japanese faces during their development; thus, their visual systems are likely to have been trained to discriminate the gaze direction of Finnish faces more accurately. No, Is the Subject Area "Fear" applicable to this article? Some cultures find eye contact as vital in communication while others find the trait rude or disrespectful. Many Asian cultures do not practice the whole "eye contact" deal. These studies also suggest that the cultural differences in attention to faces with a direct gaze are task dependent. There was no time limit for the ratings. here. The special appearance of the human eye (i.e., white sclera contrasted with a coloured iris) implies the importance of detecting another person's face through eye contact. Thus, anger perception in neutral faces from another culture might override the effect of facial structures. The result indicated that Finnish participants were more likely to consider a slightly averted gaze as directed at them when viewing Japanese faces than when viewing Finnish faces. The researchers showed … Inc. helps entrepreneurs change the world. Eye contact with your superior or elder is thought to be disrespectful and rude. You may work directly with people from different It has been proposed that the structure of the human eye evolved under the pressure of the need for coordinated behavior with others [3]. In such an authoritarian culture, it is believed that subordinates should not make steady eye contact with their superiors. Facial Expressions. We thank our volunteers for participating in the research and Essi Laitinen for her assistance in collecting the data. There was also significant interaction between stimulus faces’ cultural background and emotion (F (6, 174) = 8.06, p < .001). The results for the ratings of subjective pleasantness and arousal are shown in Table 2. Finnish participants gave looking-at-me responses more frequently to Japanese faces than to Finnish faces. The effects of approach- and avoidance-related emotions thus might have canceled each other out. The instruction remained on the screen until a response was given. It plays a key role in a social interaction since it represents a person’s engagement with a conversation. Europe: In most areas of Europe, looking into a person’s eyes while conversing is seen as a mark of respect. However, in Mexico, eye contact sustained too long is viewed negatively and suspiciously. For example, in China and Japan, children show respect to elders by not making intense eye contact. Participants were allowed to rest between the blocks. In the third block, only faces with a direct gaze were shown, and the participants assessed how intensely the faces reflected each of the following emotions: anger, disgust, fear, neutrality, happiness, sadness, and surprise (1 = not reflecting at all; 9 = reflecting too much).