Abstract
Cross-cultural studies of emotion recognition in nonverbal vocalizations not only support the universality hypothesis for its innate features, but also an in-group advantage for culture-dependent features. Nevertheless, in such studies, differences in socio-economic-educational status have not always been accounted for, with idiomatic translation of emotional concepts being a limitation, and the underlying psychophysiological mechanisms still un-researched. We set out to investigate whether native residents from Guinea-Bissau (West African culture) and Portugal (Western European culture)—matched for socio-economic-educational status, sex and language—varied in behavioural and autonomic system response during emotion recognition of nonverbal vocalizations from Portuguese individuals. Overall, Guinea–Bissauans (as out-group) responded significantly less accurately (corrected p < .05), slower, and showed a trend for higher concomitant skin conductance, compared to Portuguese (as in-group)—findings which may indicate a higher cognitive effort stemming from higher difficulty in discerning emotions from another culture. Specifically, accuracy differences were particularly found for pleasure, amusement, and anger, rather than for sadness, relief or fear. Nevertheless, both cultures recognized all emotions above-chance level. The perceived authenticity, measured for the first time in nonverbal cross-cultural research, in the same vocalizations, retrieved no difference between cultures in accuracy, but still a slower response from the out-group. Lastly, we provide—to our knowledge—a first account of how skin conductance response varies between nonverbally vocalized emotions, with significant differences (p < .05). In sum, we provide behavioural and psychophysiological data, demographically and language-matched, that supports cultural and emotion effects on vocal emotion recognition and perceived authenticity, as well as the universality hypothesis.
Highlights
Emotion recognition is a crucial cognitive process in human social interactions as it allows for the adequate response to relevant social stimuli (Briefer 2012)
The main effect of nationality on emotion recognition accuracy was statistically significant (F(1, 60) = 56.40, False Discovery rate (FDR) corrected p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.49, 95% CI [0.30, 0.61], d = − 10.18, Table 2) with Guinea–Bissauan consistently performing at lower accuracy than Portuguese (Fig. 2)
All our Guinean-Bissauans were Black and all our Portuguese participants White, given that we found no differences in basal skin conductance level (SCL) at baseline, and that our skin conductance response measurements (SCR) findings pointed to a trend towards higher SCR amplitude in Guinea–Bissauan compared to Portuguese, such prior effects could not have posed as confounding factors in our SCR analysis (Bernstein 1965; Janes et al 1978; Johnson and Landon 1965)
Summary
Emotion recognition is a crucial cognitive process in human social interactions as it allows for the adequate response to relevant social stimuli (Briefer 2012). Randles 2011), according to the universality hypothesis, they are recognized above-chance level across cultures This recognition ability in humans is strongly driven by innate factors (Elfenbein and Ambady 2002b; Gendron et al 2014; Tracy and Randles 2011). The universality model was supported by evidence of above-chance level emotion recognition for all cultures (for most emotions, if negative) (Cordaro et al 2016; Jürgens et al 2013; Koeda et al 2013; Laukka et al 2013; Sauter et al 2010), and cultural effects, including those of ‘in-group advantage’, by evidence of performance differences between cultures (in-group being better than out-group) (Elfenbein and Ambady 2002b; Jürgens et al 2013; Mesquita and Frijda 1992; Sauter 2010). Most studies have neglected differences in socio-economic and educational status (Niedenthal et al 2017) between cultures (with exceptions (Cordaro et al 2016)), which could be over-estimating the effect of culture, namely the general better performance of Westerners in emotion recognition
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