Describe the results of Yuki's study of emoticons.
Suggest a possible conclusion that can be drawn from his results.
Justify your answer.

Results: Yuki found that Japanese participants gave higher ratings for happiness to emoticons with happy eyes, regardless of the mouth expression. In contrast, American participants gave higher happiness ratings to emoticons with happy mouths, regardless of the eye expression. Conclusion: A possible conclusion is that culture influences non-verbal communication. Specifically, people from different cultures may learn to focus on different facial cues to interpret emotion. Justification: This conclusion is justified because the Japanese participants, whose culture often encourages masking emotions, focused on the eyes which are seen as harder to control. American participants, from a culture where emotions are more openly expressed, focused on the mouth, which is a more obvious indicator of feeling. This difference in focus between the two cultural groups supports the idea that the interpretation of non-verbal cues is learned and culturally specific.