In the United States the emoticons : ) and : - ) denote a happy face, whereas the emoticons :( or : - ( denote a sad face. However, Japanese tend to use the symbol (^_^) to indicate a happy face, and (;_;) to indicate a sad face. When participants were asked to rate the perceived levels of happiness or sadness expressed through the different computer emoticons, the researchers found that the Japanese still looked to the eyes of the emoticons to determine its emotion.
"We think it is quite interesting and appropriate that a culture that tends to masks its emotions, such as Japan, would focus on a person's eyes when determining emotion, as eyes tend to be quite subtle," said Masuda. " In the United States, where overt emotion is quite common, it makes sense to focus on the mouth, which is the most expressive feature on a person's face."
Japanese Advantage in Detecting Liars?
The results also suggest the interesting possibility that the Japanese may be better than Americans at detecting "false smiles". If the position of the eyes is the key to whether someone's smile is false or true, Japanese may be particularly good at detecting whether someone is lying or being "fake". However, these questions can only be answered with future research.
Sounds too scientific for me. Here is my hypothesis:
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