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　　Culture is a huge factor in determining whether we look someone in the eye or the kisser to interpret facial expressions, according to a new study．

　　For instance, in Japan, people tend to look to the eyes for emotional indications, while Americans tend to look to the mouth, says researcher Masaki Yuki, a behavioral scientist at Hokkaido University in Japan．This could be because the Japanese, when in the presence of others, try to suppress(抑制)their emotions more than Americans do, he said．In any case, the eyes are more difficult to control than the mouth, he said, so they probably reveal more about a person’s emotional state even if he or she is trying to hide it．

　　As a child growing up in Japan, Yuki was fascinated by pictures of American celebrities．

　　“Their smiles looked strange to me,”Yuki told Live Science．“They opened their mouths too widely, and raised the corners of their mouths in an exaggerated(夸张的)way．”

　　Japanese people tend to shy away from direct displays of emotion, and rarely smile or frown with their mouths, Yuki explained, because in Japan high value is placed on conformity(从众随俗), humbleness and emotional suppression, qualities that are thought to promote better relationships．

　　So when Yuki entered graduate school and began communicating with American scholars over e-mail, he was often confused by their use of emoticons such as smiley faces :)and sad faces, or :(．

　　“It took some time before I finally understood that they were faces,”he wrote in an e-mail．In Japan, emoticons tend to emphasize the eyes, such as the happy face(^_^)and the sad face(;_;)．“After seeing the difference between American and Japanese emoticons, it dawned on me that the faces looked exactly like typical American and Japanese smiles,”he said．