Lesson 11

• What was the aim of Yuki's study?

  To see if there was a difference in the interpretation of non-verbal communication such as emoticons between cultures
• What experimental method did Yuki use?

  Independent groups design
• What did Yuki present to American and Japanese students?

  Emoticons with six different combinations of happy/neutral/sad eyes and mouths
• What were participants asked to give?

  A rating between one and nine for how happy they thought each face was
• Which emoticon did the Japanese students give the highest ratings to and which emoticon did the American students give the highest rating to?

  Japanese students: Happy eyes

  American students: happy mouths
• Which emoticon did the Japanese students give the lowest rating to and which emoticon did the American students give the lowest rating to?

  Japanese students: sad eyes

  American students: sad mouths
• What did the results show?

  That Japanese and American people understand facial expressions differently and give more weight to different parts of the face when interpreting emotions
• Which area of the face did each culture Focus more on?

  Japanese Focus more on the eyes while Americans Focus more on the mouth
• What did Yuki conclude?

  That this was because of differences in socialization in the two cultures
• What is a strength of Yuki's study?

  Developed by further research, Yuki conducted a follow-up study in 2007 which tested Japanese and American participants using photographs of real faces. The results were very similar which gives the emoticon study higher reliability and application to real life
• Why does his study like ecological validity?

  He used computer generated pieces to test participants and emoticons do not accurately represent human faces
• Why is the study not representative?

  The samples in both conditions were students, no younger or older people
• Why can they findings not be generalized?

  The study only looked at one elements of emotion, happy or sad, which does not mean the results are true for all other emotions