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This Negative Facial Expression Is ’Universal’

全世界通用的負(fù)面表情

A furrowed brow, lifted chin and pressed-together lips are used to show negative judgment among speakers of English, Spanish, Mandarin and American Sign Language (ASL), according to a new study published in the May issue. In ASL, speakers sometimes use this "not face" alone, without any other negative sign, to indicate disagreement in a sentence.

五月新品最新報道稱，無論是說英語、西班牙語或者普通話的人，還是美語手語者，“皺眉，抬下巴，咬嘴唇”都用來表示一種負(fù)面色彩的判斷。在美語手語中，有時候說話者無需用其他手勢，而只用“憤怒臉”就可表達他們的不滿。

"Sometimes, the only way you can tell that the meaning of the sentence is negative is, that person made the ’not face’ when they signed it," said Aleix Martinez, a cognitive scientist and professor of electrical and computer engineering at The Ohio State University.

俄亥俄州立大學(xué)的電氣和計算機工程教授，認(rèn)知科學(xué)家阿萊克-馬丁內(nèi)斯說：“有時候，唯一可以告訴別人不滿的方法就是出‘憤怒臉’牌。”

Martinez and his colleagues previously identified 21 distinct facial emotions, including six basic emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust).

馬丁內(nèi)斯和他的同事們預(yù)先確定了21種不同的面部表情，包括六種基本情緒(快樂、悲傷、恐懼、憤怒、驚訝和厭惡)。

The researchers wondered if there might be a basic expression that indicates disapproval across cultures. Disapproval, disgust and disagreement should be foundational emotions to communicate, they reasoned, so a universal facial expression marking these emotions have evolved early in human history.

研究人員猜想，在跨文化領(lǐng)域中，會不會存在同一種表達反對的基本表情。他們解釋，“不贊成，厭惡和反對”應(yīng)該是交流的基本情感，因此，一種表情的普遍性就標(biāo)志著這些表情在人類歷史早期就已經(jīng)開始發(fā)展。

The researchers recruited 158 university students and filmed them in casual conversation in their first language. Some of these students spoke English as a native tongue, while others were native Spanish, Mandarin Chinese or ASL speakers. These languages have different roots and different grammatical structures. English is Germanic, Spanish is in the Latin family and Mandarin developed independently from both. ASL developed in the 1800s from a mix of French and local sign language systems, and has a grammatical structure distinct from English.

研究人員們動員了158所大學(xué)的學(xué)生參與研究，并且拍攝了他們使用第一語言時的日常交流情況。有些學(xué)生的母語是英語，有些是西班牙語，普通話或者是美語手語。這些不同的語言都有不同的詞根和語法結(jié)構(gòu)。英語來自日耳曼語系，西班牙語來自拉丁語系，而普通話在兩者的基礎(chǔ)上獨立發(fā)展。美語手語是在19世紀(jì)的法國和當(dāng)?shù)厥终Z語言系統(tǒng)的混合中產(chǎn)生的，并且它也有自身不同于英語的語法結(jié)構(gòu)。

But despite their differences, all of the groups used the "not face," the researchers found. The scientists elicited the expression by asking the students to read negative sentences or asking them to answer questions that they’d likely answer in the negative, such as, "A study shows that tuition should increase 30 percent. What do you think?"

研究人員們發(fā)現(xiàn)，不管語言有多大的差異，所有的被研究人員都使用了“不字臉”。科學(xué)家們讓學(xué)生閱讀一些負(fù)面色彩的句子或者問他們一些回答可能呈消極的問題，以此引出他們的表情。例如，“一研究報道稱學(xué)費將上漲百分之三十，你有什么想法?”

As the students responded with phrases like, "They should not do that," their facial expressions changed. A furrowed brow indicates anger, a raised chin shows disgust and tight lips denote contempt.By analyzing the video of the conversations and using an algorithm to track facial muscle movement, Martinez and his colleagues were able to show that a combination of anger, disgust and contempt danced across the speakers’ faces, regardless of their native tongue.

當(dāng)學(xué)生回答“他們不能那樣做”的時候，他們的面部表情就隨之而變。皺起的眉毛表示憤怒，抬起的下巴表示厭惡，緊抿嘴唇表示蔑視。在分析過對話視頻里的表情后，他們利用計算程序來跟蹤面部肌肉運動，馬丁內(nèi)斯和同事們發(fā)現(xiàn)，無論是什么語系，“憤怒，厭惡和輕蔑”的集合體都展現(xiàn)在說話者臉上。