Culture Determines Which Emoticon You Use

Ant writes "A LiveScience story discusses the cultural differences in interpreting facial expressions. The article notes that where you come from plays a large role in what part of the human face you use to determine another person's mood. That also includes communicating online with the usages of smiley faces. 'For instance, in Japan, people tend to look to the eyes for emotional cues, whereas Americans tend to look to the mouth, says researcher Masaki Yuki, a behavioral scientist at Hokkaido University in Japan ... In Japan, emoticons tend to emphasize the eyes, such as the happy face (^_^) and the sad face (;_;). "After seeing the difference between American and Japanese emoticons, it dawned on me that the faces looked exactly like typical American and Japanese smiles," he said.'"

Comments

Font, definitely

[6Yankee]

I never use the "Japanese style" emoticons, just the regular sideways ones. From choice, I won't give my smileys noses, instead preferring the :) form. But in some fonts (notably Arial), that results in a very flat and unnatural-looking face - so I use :-) just to make it look more "right".