Department of Psychology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 Feb 9;107(6):2408-12. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0908239106. Epub 2010 Jan 25.
Emotional signals are crucial for sharing important information, with conspecifics, for example, to warn humans of danger. Humans use a range of different cues to communicate to others how they feel, including facial, vocal, and gestural signals. We examined the recognition of nonverbal emotional vocalizations, such as screams and laughs, across two dramatically different cultural groups. Western participants were compared to individuals from remote, culturally isolated Namibian villages. Vocalizations communicating the so-called "basic emotions" (anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise) were bidirectionally recognized. In contrast, a set of additional emotions was only recognized within, but not across, cultural boundaries. Our findings indicate that a number of primarily negative emotions have vocalizations that can be recognized across cultures, while most positive emotions are communicated with culture-specific signals.
情感信号对于与同类分享重要信息至关重要，例如，警告人类危险。人类使用各种不同的线索来向他人传达自己的感受，包括面部、声音和手势信号。我们研究了两种截然不同的文化群体对非言语情感发声的识别，例如尖叫和笑声。将西方参与者与纳米比亚偏远、文化孤立的村庄的个体进行了比较。发声传达了所谓的“基本情绪”（愤怒、厌恶、恐惧、喜悦、悲伤和惊讶）。相比之下，一组额外的情绪仅在文化内部识别，而不在文化之间识别。我们的研究结果表明，一些主要的负面情绪的发声可以在不同文化之间识别，而大多数积极情绪则通过具有文化特异性的信号来传达。
