Society influences the wat we recognise people's faces
Washington, Aug 20 : Your society can influence the way you recognise other people's
faces, according to a new PLoS ONE study.
It is so, because face recognition is effortlessly achieved by people from all
different cultures, it was considered to be a basic mechanism universal among humans.
However, by using analyses inspired by novel brain imaging technology, researchers at the
University of Glasgow have discovered that cultural differences cause us to look at faces
differently.
Lead researcher Dr Roberto Caldara said: "In a series of eye-movement studies, we
showed that social experience has an impact on how people look at faces. Specifically we
noticed a striking difference in eye movements in Westerners and East Asian observers.
"We found that Westerners tend to look at specific features on an individual's face
such as the eyes and mouth whereas East Asian observers tend to focus on the nose or the
centre of the face which allows a more general view of all the features."
"One possible cause of this could be that direct or excessive eye contact may be
considered rude in East Asian cultures."
The results of the study, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the
Medical Research Council, provide novel insights into why non verbal communication between
people from different cultures is sometimes problematic, in an age where globalisation has
dramatically increased interdependence, integration and interaction among people and
corporations from all over the world.
Western societies are generally more individualistic, whereas East Asian societies are
collectivistic; Westerners appear to think and perceive focally and Easterners
globally.
Dr Caldara said: "By disproving the long-held assumption that face processing is
universally achieved we have highlighted that the external environment, including the
society in which we develop, is very influential in basic human mechanisms and caution
should be taken when generalizing findings to the entire human population."
--ANI
