How different cultures look at faces depends on the interpersonal context.

Abstract

Culture can influence how we see and experience the world, and recent research shows that it even determines how we look at each other. Yet, most of these laboratory studies use images of faces that are deprived of any social context. In the real world, we not only look at people's faces to perceive who they are, but also to signal information back to them. It is unknown, therefore, within which interpersonal contexts cultural differences in looking at faces emerge. In the current study, we manipulated one aspect of the interpersonal context of faces: whether the target face either established mutual gaze looking directly into the camera as if talking to the viewer or averted gaze slightly to the side as if talking to another person. East Asian and Western participants viewed target face videos while their eye movements were recorded. If cultural differences are exclusively related to encoding information from others, interpersonal context should not matter. However, if cultural differences are also the result of culturally specific expectations about how to appropriately interact with another person, then cultural differences should be modulated by whether the speaker seemingly addresses the viewer or another person. In support of the second hypothesis, we only find cultural differences in looking at faces in the mutual gaze condition. We speculate that cultural norms surrounding the use of gaze as a social signal may underlie previous findings of cultural differences in face perception. (PsycINFO Database Record

Culture modulates face scanning during dyadic social interactions

“…Visual orienting to faces, for instance, has been shown to decrease significantly when participants sat in the same room with another person, compared to when participants saw a videotape of the same individual 18 , highlighting the importance of social presence in naturalistic settings. Furthermore, cultural differences have been found when faces on screen appeared to make direct eye contact with the participant, with East Asians scanning the nose and Western Caucasians fixating the eyes 19 . No cultural differences were observed, however, when the faces appeared to avert their gaze, thereby pointing to possible cultural differences in eye contact avoidance 19 , which has been proposed to act as a sign of respect in East Asian cultures 20,21 .…”

“…Furthermore, cultural differences have been found when faces on screen appeared to make direct eye contact with the participant, with East Asians scanning the nose and Western Caucasians fixating the eyes 19 . No cultural differences were observed, however, when the faces appeared to avert their gaze, thereby pointing to possible cultural differences in eye contact avoidance 19 , which has been proposed to act as a sign of respect in East Asian cultures 20,21 . To examine cultural modulations on naturalistic face scanning, studies will therefore need to take into account such sociocultural norms.…”

Social Beliefs and Visual Attention: How the Social Relevance of a Cue Influences Spatial Orienting

“…For example, research has repeatedly shown that visual attention measured in the laboratory can differ from visual attention as it is employed in the real world (Kuhn, Teszka, Tenaw, & Kingstone, 2016;Risko, Laidlaw, Freeth, Foulsham, & Kingstone, 2012;Risko et al, 2016). When people look at others' faces, gaze patterns vary significantly depending on when looking at a live or pre-recorded video (Laidlaw, Foulsham, Kuhn, & Kingstone, 2011), or whether the face is looking directly at them or not (Gobel, Chen, & Richardson, 2017). Indeed, people are very much aware of social scripts that govern when it is appropriate to look and when it is not (Foulsham, Walker, & Kingstone, 2011;Laidlaw, Rothwell, & Kingstone, 2016;Wu, Bischof, & Kingstone, 2013).…”

Being watched: Effects of an audience on eye gaze and prosocial behaviour

“…For instance, direct gaze signals a desire to communicate ( Ho, Foulsham, & Kingstone, 2015 ; Kendon, 1967 ), it monitors facial displays of the other person to ensure mutual understanding ( Kleinke, 1986 ), it expresses affiliation or (dis)agreement ( Kendrick & Holler, 2017 ), attractiveness ( Georgescu et al, 2013 ), and threat or dominance ( Emery, 2000 ; Gobel et al, 2015 ). Conversely, averted gaze has been linked to preference for no interaction ( Foulsham, Walker, & Kingstone, 2011 ), conformity with social or cultural norms ( Gobel, Chen, & Richardson, 2017 ; Gobel et al, 2015 ; Laidlaw et al, 2011 ; also known as ‘civil inattention’, Goffman, 1963 ), and fear or submissive behaviour ( Emery, 2000 ; Gobel et al, 2015 ). The variety of social meanings that our eyes can convey makes our gaze a powerful tool for social interactions.…”

“…Results showed that, if participants believed the person in the video would later see the recordings, they made more eye contact with the low rank model, and less with the high rank model. In these studies, the authors suggest that averted gaze in live (versus pre-recorded) settings signals the activation of previously acquired social norms, by which it is not polite to stare at someone ( Gobel et al, 2017 ). The effect of these social norms translates into active gaze disengagement because participants do not want to appear as either someone impolite or as an interaction partner to the stranger ( Foulsham et al, 2011 ).…”