Facial expressions are crucial to human social communication, but the extent to which they are innate and universal versus learned and culture dependent is a subject of debate. Two studies explored the effect of culture and learning on facial expression understanding. In Experiment 1, Japanese and U...

The application of analytical and holistic thinking in the field of social neuroscience has been extensively explored by philosophers and psychologists from different cultures. Research has revealed the neural substrates of self-awareness processing. Whether there are differences in facial expressio...

We form first impressions from faces despite warnings not to do so. Moreover, there is considerable agreement in our impressions, which carry significant social outcomes. Appearance matters because some facial qualities are so useful in guiding adaptive behavior that even a trace of those qualities ...

Past research suggests that East Asians (Easterners) are more likely than North Americans and Western Europeans (Westerners) to incorporate information from concurrent affective contexts when judging facial expressions. The present research extends this literature by investigating the impact of temp...

Experimental research examining emotional processes is typically based on the observation of images with affective content, including facial expressions. Future studies will benefit from databases with emotion-inducing stimuli in which characteristics of the stimuli potentially influencing results c...