TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2010//
TI  - Culture, gaze and the neural processing of fear expressions
JO  - Social cognitive and affective neuroscience
A1  - Adams, Reginald B.
A1  - Franklin, Robert G.
A1  - Rule, Nicholas O.
A1  - Freeman, J. B.
A1  - Kveraga, Kestutis
A1  - Hadjikhani, Nouchine
A1  - Yoshikawa, Sakiko
A1  - Ambady, Nalini
SP  - 340
EP  - 348
VL  - 5
IS  - 2-3
N2  - The direction of others' eye gaze has important influences on how we perceive their emotional expressions. Here, we examined differences in neural activation to direct- versus averted-gaze fear faces as a function of culture of the participant (Japanese versus US Caucasian), culture of the stimulus face (Japanese versus US Caucasian), and the relation between the two. We employed a previously validated paradigm to examine differences in neural activation in response to rapidly presented direct- versus averted-fear expressions, finding clear evidence for a culturally determined role of gaze in the processing of fear. Greater neural responsivity was apparent to averted- versus direct-gaze fear in several regions related to face and emotion processing, including bilateral amygdalae, when posed on same-culture faces, whereas greater response to direct- versus averted-gaze fear was apparent in these same regions when posed on other-culture faces. We also found preliminary evidence for intercultural variation including differential responses across participants to Japanese versus US Caucasian stimuli, and to a lesser degree differences in how Japanese and US Caucasian participants responded to these stimuli. These findings reveal a meaningful role of culture in the processing of eye gaze and emotion, and highlight their interactive influences in neural processing.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1749-5016
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsp047
ID  - ref1
ER  -