Sauter Disa A
Department of Psychology; University College London; London, UK; and Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics; Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Commun Integr Biol. 2010 Sep;3(5):440-2. doi: 10.4161/cib.3.5.12285.
Laughter communicates a feeling of enjoyment across cultures, while non-verbal vocalizations of several other positive emotions, such as achievement or sensual pleasure, are recognizable only within, but not across, cultural boundaries. Are these positive vocalizations nevertheless interpreted cross-culturally as signaling positive affect? In a match-to-sample task, positive emotional vocal stimuli were paired with positive and negative facial expressions, by English participants and members of the Himba, a semi-nomadic, culturally isolated Namibian group. The results showed that laughter was associated with a smiling facial expression across both groups, consistent with previous work showing that human laughter is a positive, social signal with deep evolutionary roots. However, non-verbal vocalizations of achievement, sensual pleasure and relief were not cross-culturally associated with smiling facial expressions, perhaps indicating that these types of vocalizations are not cross-culturally interpreted as communicating a positive emotional state, or alternatively that these emotions are associated with positive facial expression other than smiling. These results are discussed in the context of positive emotional communication in vocal and facial signals. Research on the perception of non-verbal vocalizations of emotions across cultures demonstrates that some affective signals, including laughter, are associated with particular facial configurations and emotional states, supporting theories of emotions as a set of evolved functions that are shared by all humans regardless of cultural boundaries.
笑声在不同文化中都传达着一种愉悦感，而其他几种积极情绪的非语言发声，比如成就感或感官愉悦，却只能在文化界限内被识别，无法跨越文化界限被识别。然而，这些积极的发声在跨文化情境中是否会被理解为传达积极情感的信号呢？在一个样本匹配任务中，英国参与者以及辛巴族（纳米比亚一个半游牧、文化孤立的群体）的成员，将积极情绪的发声刺激与积极和消极的面部表情进行配对。结果显示，两组中笑声都与微笑的面部表情相关联，这与之前的研究结果一致，即人类的笑声是一种具有深厚进化根源的积极社交信号。然而，成就感、感官愉悦和宽慰的非语言发声在跨文化情境中与微笑的面部表情并无关联，这或许表明这些类型的发声在跨文化情境中并不被理解为传达积极的情绪状态，或者说这些情绪与除微笑之外的其他积极面部表情相关联。本文在声音和面部信号中的积极情绪交流背景下对这些结果进行了讨论。跨文化对情绪非语言发声的感知研究表明，包括笑声在内的一些情感信号与特定的面部形态和情绪状态相关联，这支持了情绪是一组所有人类无论文化界限都共有的进化功能的理论。
