Cultural variation in hemifacial asymmetry of emotion expressions.

Photographs of hemifacial composites (left-left, right-right and normal presentation, right-left) of these cultures (Japanese, Oriental Indian and North American) displaying six emotions (happy, sad, fear, anger, surprise, disgust) and a neutral state were administered successively (one by one) as well as simultaneously (three hemifacial photographs of an expression at a time) to observers for judgment on a 5-point scale in terms of distinctiveness of expression. Observers' judgments were treated with a culture of expressor x sex of expressor x facial presentation x emotion category mixed factorial ANOVA. Cultures did not vary for their distinctiveness of facial expressions, suggesting universality in this respect. Culture-specificity was, however, observed with respect to hemifacial asymmetry and valence of emotion expressions: (1) Japanese showed a right hemifacial bias for positive and left hemifacial bias for negative emotions; Indians and North Americans showed left hemifacial bias for all emotions, and (2) negative emotion expressions were least distinctly identifiable in Japanese faces followed by Indian and North American faces.

Responses of low-IQ students on the learning awareness questionnaire compared to students matched on mental and chronological age.

Learning awareness, including semantic content, response strategy, processing strategy, summarization, and memory in the classroom, were examined in students with mental retardation. From urban schools in Japan special high school students with average IQ of 60 (n = 40) and students with normal intellectual capacity matched on mental (n = 40) and chronological age (n = 40) were administered a 16-item Learning Awareness Questionnaire. Students of low IQ on the Tanaka-Binet test obtained lower scores on semantic content and memory strategies than chronological or mental age-matched controls, but not on response and processing. Scores indicated that students of low IQ may be equally aware of learning processes related to response and processing strategies.

Pattern of social interaction in societies of the Asia-Pacific region.

The authors developed an 18-item Social Interaction Inventory that yielded a factorial structure based on the 3 domains of social interaction: interpersonal, personal, and extrapersonal. They administered the inventory to samples from 15 countries of the Asia-Pacific region (N = 146). The participants in the different cultural groups preferred to interact more within the interpersonal (in-group) domain as compared with the personal (individual) and extrapersonal (out-group) domains. The findings reflect a collective pattern, rather than an individualistic pattern, of social interaction in the societies of the Asia-Pacific region.

[Perception of schizophrenic patients in classifying pictures of facial expression].

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perception of schizophrenics in classifying pictures of various facial expressions. Schizophrenics were divided into five groups according to the duration of their hospitalization. In the first experiment, subjects were instructed to look at the pictures of three different kinds of facial expressions, anger, delight (laughing) and sadness (crying), and classify them into any categories they like. In comparison with normals, schizophrenics had a difficulty in recognizing the differences in the various facial expressions. In the second experiment, subjects were instructed to look at the same pictures and classify them into three groups of different facial expressions. In this case, schizophrenics were able to classify them almost as well as normals.