Looking-at-me responses are indicated as a function of gaze direction for Finnish and Japanese faces of Finnish and Japanese participants. Acuity for triadic eye gaze, The perception of where a person is looking, Are you looking at me? All participants were above 18 years (Finnish: mean SD = 22.97 4.60; Japanese: mean SD = 21.80 3.37), and there was no difference in the chronological age between the two groups (independent t-test, t (58) = 1.12, p > .10). Additionally, there was a significant simple main effect of culture for the direct gaze (F (1, 38) =9.70, p=.003, p2=.20) but not for the averted gaze difference scores (F (1, 38) =0.10, p=.753, p2<.01). The model and the stimulus conditions were otherwise the same as in the first block. For the rating tasks in the first two blocks (pleasantness, arousal, dominance, and warmth), average scores in each condition were first calculated for each participant, and these average scores were then analyzed using a 2 (cultural background of the participant) 2 (cultural background of the stimulus face) 2 (gaze direction) mixed-design ANOVA. In the United States and in many other countries, eye contact is crucial on job interviews, when asking someone for a date and in many other important human interactions. On each trial, the presentation time was 5 s. Before the model opened the shutter, she said Ready? to ensure that the participant was looking at the window when the shutter was opened. [, Wieser MJ, Pauli P, Alpers GW, Mhlberger A (2009), Is eye to eye contact really threatening and avoided in social anxiety? To familiarize participants with the task procedure, five practice trials preceded the experimental trials. ANOVAs revealed no significant main effects or interactions for any gaze angle (all Fs (1, 28) < 1.01, ps > 0.32). Means of the percentage of looking-at-me responses. It has been proposed that facial signals reflecting the same motivational tendency are combined and therefore processed effectively [43]. In China, people make eye contact when they are angry. In addition to anger, Japanese individuals also rated the model as sadder when displaying a direct gaze as compared to an averted gaze. Humans use information from gaze direction to understand others attentional focus and mental state [1] and to maintain social relationships with others [2]. Human infants prefer faces with a direct gaze over those with an averted gaze since birth [6]. In summary, this study found cultural differences in eye contact perception between Finnish and Japanese participants. The scores in the AQ (Finnish: mean SD 12.90 5.67; Japanese: mean SD = 21.70 6.24) and the SPS (Finnish: mean SD = 17.80 8.10; Japanese: mean SD = 27.30 12.78) were significantly higher for Japanese than for Finnish participants (AQ: t (58) = 5.71, p < .001; SPS: t (58) = 3.43, p = .001). We thank our volunteers for participating in the research and Essi Laitinen for her assistance in collecting the data. To avoid any confusion, the scales presented below the stimuli were always named. Gift Giving: In general, gifts are given at Chinese New Year, weddings, births and more recently (because of marketing), birthdays. Inspection of the data revealed that, in some conditions, HR slightly accelerated during the first post-stimulus 500-ms time interval in comparison to the pre-stimulus 500-ms time interval, after which HR started to decelerate in all conditions. Maintaining eye contact during social interaction is a more important principle for Western Europeans than for East Asians [26]. Attention to Eye Contact in the West and East: Autonomic Responses and Evaluative Ratings. . On the one hand, the European customs of eye contactespecially in such countries as Spain, France and Germanytends to be similar to that in the United States. It is often considered more polite to have only sporadic or brief eye contact, especially between people of different social registers (like a student and a teacher, or a child and his elder relatives). 8600 Rockville Pike Accordingly, negative change score values indicate HR deceleration and positive values indicate HR acceleration during stimulus viewing. By contrast, the Finnish participants might not have shown an orienting reflex to the appearance of the face when they could control the stimulus presentation. 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. It can be seen not as confident as it is in the US but as confrontational. However, in Asia it is taught not to look into eyes as a sign of politeness. Socially threatening faces (i.e., angry faces) have been shown to elicit decelerated HR and reduced body sway, interpreted as a defensive and freezing response [50]. For evaluations of disgust, fear, happiness, and surprise, there were no significant effects of gaze and culture and no significant interaction between the two (all ps >.05). The normal amount of eye contact. The participant was instructed to open the shutter after hearing the soft audio signal through the speaker and close the shutter whenever he/she felt it was natural. The sequence of events for a single stimulus presentation trial is shown in Fig. While leading a company that connects physicians online, Kirk learned firsthand the importance of such information-sharing during his own illness. Consistent with this, both groups of participants gave higher fear and surprise ratings to Finnish than Japanese faces. In the present study, an autonomic correlate (i.e., heart rate deceleration) of the orienting of attention to eye contact, as well as looking time and evaluative ratings among participants originating from Western European (Finland) and East Asian (Japan) cultures, was investigated by measuring responses to direct gaze, averted gaze, and closed eyes. 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On the other hand, if there are such differences in culture-related learning history between Western European and East Asian individuals that lead to differences at the level of (automatic) affective-motivational processing of eye contact, then differences in HR deceleration might appear. A recent study demonstrated that out-group faces are associated with angry expressions even when the out-group is defined by a minimal cue [49]. Studies investigating eye fixation patterns while scanning static facial expression images ([20]; but see also [57]), and moving animated faces [31] have not observed shorter fixation durations to eye regions between samples of East Asian vs. Western European individuals. First, we did not assess attention allocation in the gaze direction judgment task. 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. We also did not obtain specific ethics approval for this research in Japan, but the experimental procedure was approved as a part of another study by the local ethics committee of Kyoto University Graduate School and Faculty of Medicine. To investigate whether cultural differences in attention to faces impact the perception of eye contact, it would be useful for future cross-cultural studies to record eye movements as participants determine gaze direction. For example, faces displaying a direct gaze are detected faster [7], [8], these faces hold our visual attention [9], and these faces increase an observer's autonomic arousal (e.g., skin conductance response, [10]; heart rate, [11]) more than faces displaying an averted gaze. By contrast, the present results suggest that both Japanese and Finnish participants rated direct gaze faces as more arousing than averted gaze faces. Our results showed that eye contact elicited stronger heart rate deceleration responses (i.e., attentional orienting), shorter looking times, and higher ratings of subjective feelings of arousal as compared to averted gaze in both cultures. 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. The model also confirmed that the participant was seeing her adequately. Finnish faces were rated as more expressive of anger, fear, and surprise than Japanese faces (anger: F (1, 29) = 23.99, p < .001; fear: F (1, 29) = 9.79, p = .004; surprise: F (1, 29) = 8.92, p = .006); while Japanese faces were rated as more neutral than Finnish faces (F (1, 29) = 20.19, p < .001). After 150 ms, the face disappeared and the response window appeared on the screen. Let's consider eye contact. The models sat on a chair and rested their heads against a wall behind them to stabilize their head orientation. These findings suggest that the detection of a direct gaze has great significance for human social interaction. McCarthy A, Lee K, Itakura S, Muir DW (2008) Gaze display when thinking depends on culture and context. Before you travel, you would do well to go to your local public library or bookstore and check out or browse a book about the culture of the country you plan to visit. However, this technique tends to lead to you locking your eyes on that spot, making those in the middle section feel that they are being stared at and those on the sides feel ignored. Body language, tone of voice, eye contact, and gestures can convey as much as spoken or written words. You may be perceived as rude, unfriendly or even arrogant. Asian Clients. The Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: TH JKH. Eye contact is an essential form of communication around the world. Participants were asked to rate the valence and arousal of their own feelings by using a 9-point Likert scale (valence: 1= pleasant, 9= unpleasant; arousal: 1= calm, 9= arousing), the strength of expression on the model's face along six basic emotion categories (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise) by using a 7-point Likert scale, and pleasantness, dominance, and approachability of the model's face by using a 7-point Likert scale (pleasantness: 1= very unpleasant, 7= very pleasant; dominance: 1= very submissive, 7= very dominant; approachability: 1= very unapproachable, 7= very approachable) in each condition. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Averted gaze was accomplished by looking at certain points on the partition behind the participant. First, although a direct gaze universally serves important social functions, attention to faces with a direct gaze differs across cultures. 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). In contrast, Japanese faces were rated as more expressive of anger and disgust than Finnish faces (anger: F (1, 29) = 9.48, p = .005; disgust: F (1, 29) = 8.43, p = .007). However, the hypotheses based on culture were not that straightforward. 1 Institute of Psychology, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia, 4 In Asia, the Middle East, Hispanic cultures and Native American cultures - eye contact is often considered disrespectful. We also did not obtain specific ethics approval for this research in Japan, but the experimental procedure was approved as a part of another study by the local ethics committee of Kyoto University Graduate School and Faculty of Medicine. (2005), Specific brain activation in Japanese and Caucasian people to fearful faces, Canadian, Greek, and Japanese freely produced emotion labels for facial expressions, Are the windows to the soul the same in the East and West? Too much eye contact may be interpreted as a challenge. It has been proposed that facial signals reflecting the same motivational tendency are combined and therefore processed effectively [43]. This suggests that HR deceleration was faster for the JP than the FI participants when looking at a face displaying a direct gaze. There was also a marginally significant interaction between participants and stimulus faces cultural backgrounds (F (1, 58) = 3.45, p = .068), indicating that gaze deviation degree with 50% probability of eye-contact acceptance in Finnish participants was greater for Japanese than Finnish faces (F (1, 29) = 7.13, p = .012). This Morning. Fixation points were attached on the bar at 5.4, 10.8, 16.3, 21.8, and 27.3 cm to right and left of the 0 point, the midline. Humans use information from gaze direction to understand others attentional focus and mental state [1] and to maintain social relationships with others [2]. The center of the lens was at eye level, between the models eyes. In the future, an eye-tracking device should be used when viewing real faces to investigate the relationship between eye contact behaviour, physiological responses, and subjective feelings to eye contact. However, it is also true that direct and prolonged eye contact is avoided in China. 3). The distance between the center of the iris and the outer corner of an eye was measured for both eyes in each image. Wrote the paper: SU JKH. The rating results suggest that individuals from an East Asian culture perceive another's face as angrier and more unapproachable and unpleasant when making eye contact as compared to individuals from a Western European culture. To help create photographs with an averted gaze, a horizontal bar was positioned behind the camera, at the eye level, approximately 155 cm away from the models heads. Less spontaneous eye contact among Japanese individuals [27][29] would suggest that these individuals feel that a face that is making eye contact is more unpleasant and unapproachable, but more dominant, than individuals from a Western European culture. In that study, although larger SCRs were elicited by direct vs. averted gaze faces in the self-controlled stimulus presentation condition, SCRs were larger, overall, in the self-controlled vs. computer-controlled stimulus presentation condition. In this condition, gaze direction had no effect on HR in either cultural group. However, cultural differences in response to different gaze directions were not observed within physiological or behavioural responses. For example, Hispanic cultures rely heavily on facial expressions such as frowning or tipping the head (Nieves & Stack, 2007). An ERP study, Hietanen JK, Leppnen JM, Peltola MJ, Linna-Aho K, Ruuhiala HJ (2008), Seeing direct and averted gaze activates the approach-avoidance motivational brain systems, Look into my eyes: Gaze direction and person memory, Gaze following in human infants depends on communicative signals, Dadds MR, Allen JL, Oliver BR, Faulkner N, Legge K, et al. Given these results, the animated eye contact faces, such as those used in the previous studies [53], [54] might not be socially powerful enough to exert an influence on attentional orienting and corresponding autonomic responses. The photograph sessions for the Finnish and Japanese models were conducted in two laboratories in Tampere and Kyoto, respectively, by the same photographer, the first author (S.U.). The quote depicts how the art of Chinese business etiquette is to build closely-knit personal relationships with business contacts. For the emotion rating task, each participants average scores were analyzed using a 2 (cultural background of the participant) 2 (cultural background of the stimulus face) 7 (emotion) mixed-design ANOVA.

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