WASHINGTON—Facial expressions have been called the “universal language of emotion,” but people from different cultures perceive happy, sad or angry facial expressions in unique ways, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

Cultural differences ought not to contradict an evolutionary view of facial expressions as different cultures may rely on different facial cues, functional in a given culture and for a given emotion. Moreover, it is also possible that a situation elicits different emotional responses in different cultures, resulting in different facial displays.

Evidence shows that a number of facial expressions are related to similar emotions across cultures. Psychologist Paul Ekman showed photographs of faces to people in twenty different western cultures and eleven different isolated and pre-literate groups in Africa.