Cultural differences in perceiving transitions in emotional facial expressions: Easterners show greater contrast effects than westerners

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 extends this literature by investigating the impact of temporal on emotion perception. Specifically, two experiments tested hypothesis smiles, Easterners Westerners be influenced preceding In Experiment 1, participants China Canada judged valence low-intensity smiles were preceded expressions anger or high-intensity smiles. results indicated that, compared Canadian participants, Chinese perceivers expressions, with larger differences in perceived different start emotions. 2 investigated whether pattern findings generalized other populations emotional transitions. Participants Netherlands (high- low- intensity) angry, fearful, neutral Consistent participants' judgments impacted a finding was stable across Together, these demonstrate Easterners, relative Westerners, context others' current smiling