Yuki emoticon

• Japanese and American people


  • Give more weight to different parts of the face when interpreting another person's emotions
  • Japanese focus more on the eyes
  • Americans focus more on the mouth
• Research has shown that the eyes muscles are not as easy to control as those around the mouth
• Yuki's work on differences in cross cultural non verbal communication


  • Supported by a range of cross cultural research that shows that people from eastern and western cultures do have different ways of perceiving the world
• Yuki's study lacks ecological validity


  By not using real faces that people are more used to interacting with
• Real faces are more complex, also when interpreting emotions we see movement in faces
• Yuki's faces were simple computer generated images
• The range of emotion looked at was limited, happy/sad
• These results may not be generalisable, maybe for the interpretation of other emotions Japanese and Americans may use the same facial features
• Demand characteristics may have occurred in Yuki's study
• Japanese and American people


  • Give more weight to different parts of the face when interpreting another person's emotions
  • Japanese focus more on the eyes
  • Americans focus more on the mouth
• Research has shown that the eye muscles are not as easy to control as those around the mouth