A change in strategy: Static emotion recognition in Malaysian Chinese

Abstract

Studies have shown that while East Asians focused on the center of the face to recognize identities, participants adapted their strategy by focusing more on the eyes to identify emotions, suggesting that the eyes may contain salient information pertaining to emotional state in Eastern cultures. However, Western Caucasians employ the same strategy by moving between the eyes and mouth to identify both identities and emotions. Malaysian Chinese have been shown to focus on the eyes and nose more than the mouth during face recognition task, which represents an intermediate between Eastern and Western looking strategies. The current study examined whether Malaysian Chinese continue to employ an intermediate strategy or shift towards an Eastern or Western pattern (by fixating more on the eyes or mouth respectively) during an emotion recognition task. Participants focused more on the eyes, followed by the nose then mouth. Directing attention towards the eye region resulted in better recognition of certain own- than other-race emotions. Although the fixation patterns appear similar for both tasks, further analyses showed that fixations on the eyes were reduced whereas fixations on the nose and mouth were increased during emotion recognition, indicating that participants adapt looking strategies based on their aims.

Keywords:

• eye movement
• face processing
• facial expressions
• emotion
• Malaysian Chinese

Public Interest Statement

While East Asians focus on the center of the face to recognize identities, they adapt their strategy by focusing more on the eyes when identifying emotions. However, Western Caucasians use the same strategy by moving between the eyes and mouth to identify both identities and emotions. Malaysian Chinese people have been shown to focus on the eyes and nose more than the mouth when recognizing faces. The current study examined Malaysian Chinese adults’ looking strategies during an emotion recognition task. To recognize emotions, Malaysian Chinese looked more at the eyes, followed by the nose then mouth. Directing attention towards the eyes resulted in better recognition of certain own- than other-race emotions. Although they appear to use similar strategies to recognize emotions and identities, they actually looked less at the eyes and more at the nose and mouth when identifying emotions, indicating that people adapt looking strategies based on their aims.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interest.

Additional information

Funding

Funding. The authors received no direct funding for this research.

Notes on contributors

Chrystalle B.Y. Tan

We are interested in human perception and attention in social situations. Using eye-tracking methodologies, we investigate how observers encode and interpret visual information when performing various face-processing tasks, such as face recognition and emotion recognition. We are particularly interested in how individuals from non-western cultures process faces and the possibility that there may be cultural differences in visual strategies as well as face perception performance.