Emotions of the West and East 10.02.2008

American and Japanese psychologists, studying differences in the expression of emotions in the two peoples, handed out photographs of faces to Japanese and Americans and asked them to rate whether the photographed person had a cheerful or sad expression. And the photographs were "synthetic": sad eyes were mounted with a wide smile, or, conversely, the eyes were smiling, and the tips of the lips were lowered.

The results of a survey of 120 people showed that when evaluating facial expressions, Americans look primarily at the mouth, while Japanese look almost exclusively at the eyes. Scientists have concluded that the Japanese traditionally restrain their feelings, their facial expressions are inactive, so you have to look at the eyes, the expression of which is more difficult to control than the expression of the mouth.

By the way, Japanese emoticons, computer icons synthesized from the characters of a conventional keyboard, are very different from Western ones. Where we put :-) to communicate his cheerful mood, the Japanese draws (^ ^). The sad mood icon in the everyday life of our computer users looks like :-(, and the corresponding Japanese one looks like (; _;) (tears drip from the eyes). That is, in our version, when the mood changes, the mouth pattern changes, and in Japanese - the eye.

Examples of Japanese emoticons: (^_^) - smile, joy, (^^) - sometimes a smile, sometimes something like "hee hee", a slight smile, (^.^) - a woman's smile, (^_^;) - nervous laughter, (^o^) - dying with laughter, \(^_^)/ - joy, (*_*) - admiration, (^L^) - happy, (^(^) - happy, (^_ ^)/ - greeting waving hand, (^_^)/~~ - greeting, (;_;)/~~ - waving goodbye, (-_-) - sour mine, sadness, sadness, mysterious smile, ( ^_~) - wink, (^_-) - wink, (o_o) - surprised, (O_O) - very surprised, (o_O) - bewilderment, surprise, (V_v) - unpleasant surprise, (> _>) - skepticism , (@_@) - awesomeness, (*^o^*) - excited, (*^.^*) - excited, (v_v) - sadness, (;_;) - tears, crying, (T_T) - tears , crying, (~~>.<~~) - tears, crying, ///_^ - emo, ^_\\\ - emo, (*^^*) - embarrassment, shame, (^_^;;; ;) - embarrassment (in a cold sweat), (^^') - what is shown in anime and manga with a drop (embarrassment), (^^;) - a variation on the theme of a drop, (>_< ) - angry, angry, (>.< ) - angry, angry, m(._.)m - apologizes, (?_?) -misunderstanding, confusion, question, (!_!) - shock, (^o^;> - "I'm sorry, I didn't understand", (-_-;) - illness, (-_-;)~ - illness, (x_x) - death, corpse, (+_+) - death, (+_+)~ - death, (%_%) - after a night at the computer, ^}{^ - love, (=__=) - sleepy or "tired :", (-.-)Zzz.. - sleep, (u_u) - sleep, (* ^)3(*^^*) - kiss, \=oo=/ - wear glasses, m(_)m - humble a bow of gratitude or apology, (=^_^=) - a cat, (=^.^=) - the same, (^..^) - a pig, ("\ (o_O) /") - Father Medved, Y ( O,,,,O)Y - Cthulhu, (x(x_(x_x(O_o)x_x)_x)x) - alive among zombies.

If in Western emoticons the strength of emotions is expressed by the number of brackets)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))), then in in "Japanese-style" emoticons, this can be expressed by the length of the underline: ^______________^.