Two studies provided direct support for a recently proposed dialect theory of communicating emotion, positing that expressive displays show cultural variations similar to linguistic dialects, thereby decreasing accurate recognition by out-group members. In Study 1, 60 participants from Quebec and Gabon posed facial expressions. Dialects, in the form of activating different muscles for the same expressions, emerged most clearly for serenity, shame, and contempt and also for anger, sadness, surprise, and happiness, but not for fear, disgust, or embarrassment. In Study 2, Quebecois and Gabonese participants judged these stimuli and stimuli standardized to erase cultural dialects. As predicted, an in-group advantage emerged for nonstandardized expressions only and most strongly for expressions with greater regional dialects, according to Study 1.

This study aims to investigate cultural differences in recognition accuracy as well as the in-group advantage hypothesis for emotion recognition among sub-Saharan African, Chinese, and French Canadian individuals living in Canada. The participants viewed expressions of happiness, anger, sadness, fear, disgust, and shame selected from the Montreal Set of Facial Displays of Emotion. These data did not support the in-group advantage hypothesis under the condition of stimulus equivalence. However, both encoder and decoder effects were found. Specifically, French Canadians were more accurate for the decoding of expressions of shame and sadness. Moreover, fear expressions were best recognized when shown by sub-Saharan Africans, suggesting an effect of salience of expressive cues due to morphological features of the face.

We investigated adults' voluntary control of 20 facial action units theoretically associated with 6 basic emotions (happiness, fear, anger, surprise, sadness, and disgust). Twenty young adults were shown video excerpts of facial action units and asked to reproduce them as accurately as possible. Facial Action Coding System (FACS; Ekman & Friesen, 1978a) coding of the facial productions showed that young adults succeeded in activating 18 of the 20 target actions units, although they often coactivated other action units. Voluntary control was clearly better for some action units than for others, with a pattern of differences between action units consistent with previous work in children and adolescents.

The confidence we have in our assessment of an interaction partner's emotional state can have important consequences for the quality of the interaction. Two studies assessed the hypothesis that immigrants are more confident in their judgment of others' emotional facial expressions if the expresser is a member of their cultural ingroup rather than a member of the host community or another cultural group. In addition, the effects of the perceived familiarity with the type of expression, the length of residence in the host country, the quality of cross-cultural contact, the level of acculturation, and the intensity of the facial expressions were assessed. Overall, the results revealed an ingroup advantage effect for confidence ratings as well as support for the notion that individuals are more confident when judging expressions that they consider as more frequently displayed in everyday life. Furthermore, individuals were more confident when judging happiness expressions as well as more intense expressions in general.

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S chizo phre nia pa tients fre quently ex pe ri ence prob lems when at tempt ing to iden tify emo tions based on the expres sive be hav iour of oth ers (for ex am ple, 1-3). More over, they have been shown to be less sen si tive than the gen eral pop u la tion to in ter per sonal cues emit ted in so cial sit u a tions (3,4). These dif fi cul ties may af fect the qual ity of schizo phrenia pa tients' so cial in ter ac tions. In the past de cade, stud ies using the So cial Cue Rec og ni tion Test (SCRT) (3) have con trib uted to our un der stand ing of so cial cue per cep tion in schizo phre nia pa tients (4-9) by show ing that they have more dif fi culty than do nor mal par tic i pants in rec og niz ing ab stract ver sus con crete cues (3,10). This dif fi culty is even greater in con texts where emo tional arousal is low (3-5).The SCRT is fre quently used to eval u ate so cial per cep tion in in di vid u als with schizo phre nia and has good test-re test re liabil ity (5) and con cur rent va lid ity (3). This in stru ment has been avail able in Eng lish only, how ever, and for use in Canada, a bi lin gual ver sion was needed. The goal of our study was to cre ate a Ca na dian (French and Eng lish) ver sion of the (SCRT-C) that is sim i lar to the orig i nal Amer i can ver sion (SCRT-US). We de vel oped a bi lin gual test with a con tent W Can J Psy chia try, Vol 47, No 1, Feb ru ary 2002 83Ob jec tive: Our pri mary ob jec tive was to cre ate and vali date the So cial Cue Rec og ni tion Test-C (SCRT-C), a Ca na dian test com pa ra ble with the origi nal SCRT. Method:We ad min is tered the SCRT-C and the origi nal SCRT to 111 nor mal un der graduate stu dents. Re sults:In our sam ple, the re li abil ity and va lid ity of the SCRT-C were mod er ately high and simi lar to those found with Cor rigan's SCRT. The re sults also sug gest that the Eng lish and French ver sions of the Ca na dian SCRT are equiva lent. Con clu sions:The SCRT-C is an ap pro pri ate in stru ment for as sess ing so cial cue rec og nition in emo tional con texts.(Can J Psy chia try 2002;47:81-85)Clini cal Im pli ca tions • The Ca na dian So cial Cue Rec og ni tion Test (SCRT-C) is an ap pro pri ate in stru ment for as sessing so cial cue rec og ni tion in emo tional con texts. • The psy cho met ric char ac ter is tics of the SCRT-C are highly com pa ra ble with those found on the origi nal SCRT. At cer tain lev els, these psy cho met ric char ac ter is tics are su pe rior on the SCRT-C.• The SCRT-C could be use ful in study ing the defi cit in emo tion and so cial cue per cep tion in in di vidu als with psy chi at ric prob lems. Limi ta tions• Out of 36 items, 4 prob lem atic ones had to be re moved from each vi gnette to ob tain ac ceptable in ter nal con sis tency and va lid ity.• The in ter nal con sis tency es ti mates for the SCRT-C and SCRT-US were only mod er ately high.• The SCRT-C has not yet been tested on a sam ple of schizo phre nia pa tients. Abstract 0.67 0.62 0.65 Moderate-emotion Concrete 0.54 0.64 0.68 Abstract 0.73 0.73 0.62 SCRT-...