Identification of Emotion from Body Movements: A Cross-Cultural Study of Americans and Japanese

In the present study American and Japanese subjects' judgments of emotional cues in body movements were compared, when facial information was excluded. Seven fundamental emotions of joy, surprise, fear, sadness, disgust, anger, contempt and three affective-cognitive structures for the emotions of affection, anticipation, and acceptance were displayed by four Japanese actors/actresses with their backs turned toward the viewer. The emotions of sadness, fear, and anger as expressed in kinetic movement showed high agreement between the two cultural groups. Joy and surprise, even though they are classified as fundamental emotions, contained some cultural components that affected the judgments. Furthermore, USA subjects successfully identified disgust as portrayed by Japanese actors/actresses, but Japanese subjects did not identify the expressions of disgust or contempt. Affection, anticipation, and acceptance have some cultural components that are interpreted differently by Japanese and Americans, and this accounted for some of the misunderstandings. Nevertheless, most of the scenes depicting emotions and affective-cognitive structures emotions were correctly identified by the subjects of each culture.