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"Long before it's in the papers"
January 26, 2010
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Study: recognition of facial expressions not universal
Jan. 26, 2010
Courtesy University of Montreal
and World Science staff
Cau�casians and Asians don't ex�am�ine faces in the same way, ac�cord�ing to
new re�search.
Car�o�line Blais, a doc�tor�al stu�dent in psy�chol�o�gy at the Uni�vers�ity
of Mon�tr�al, has pub�lished two new stud�ies on the sub�ject in the
re�search jour�nals Cur�rent Bi�ol�o�gy and PLoS One.
Pre�vi�ous stud�ies have shown that peo�ple col�lect in�forma�t�ion by
mostly stu�dy�ing the eyes as well as the mouth of a face. "The prob�lem is
that these stud�ies al�ways used Cau�ca�sian test sub�jects," said Blais.
Blais said she had ques�tioned the uni�ver�sal�ity of fa�cial recog�ni�tions
af�ter stud�ies showed that Asians study faces in an over�all fash�ion,
while Cau�casians break down faces in�to dis�tinct parts.
Blais used a cam�era de�signed to track eye move�ments to study 14
Cau�ca�sian and 14 Asian par�ti�ci�pants in her re�search. The sub�jects
were shown 112 Cau�ca�sian and Asian faces and asked wheth�er had seen the
face be�fore and to name the dom�i�nat�ing trait. The study con�firmed that
Cau�casians study the tri�an�gle of the eyes and mouth, while Asians fo�cus
on the nose, Blais said.