著者

川合 伸幸

出版者

日本認知科学会

雑誌

認知科学 = Cognitive studies : bulletin of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society (ISSN:13417924)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.20, no.1, pp.46-58, 2013-03-01

参考文献数

35

被引用文献数

1

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A Noh mask, carved out of wood, is often said to be a byword for impassivity.<br> However, a Noh mask expresses various emotions during traditional Japanese Noh per<br>formances. A Noh mask that looks upward expresses happiness, while a mask looks<br> downward expresses sadness. Nevertheless, previous studies reported the opposite re<br>sults: people recognize pictures of masks with upward inclinations as being sad, whereas<br> masks with the larger downward inclinations were perceived as happy. This absurdity<br> seems to be occurred partly due to something realized in Mona Lisa's smile. Livingstone<br> (2000) pointed out that we cannot directly see Mona Lisa's smile. Her smile appears<br> only when we look at her eyes with seeing her mouth peripherally. A recent empirical<br> study confirmed that this peripheral vision for smile makes a face more mysterious than<br> a neutral or continuously smiling face. I will argue that a smiling mouth of Noh masks<br> with downward inclinations makes a Noh mask mysterious during Noh performances,<br>because hardly Eastern Asia people look at a mouth when they judge facial expressions (i.e., people see a mouth only peripherally). In experimental settings, people look at a<br> mouth of a Noh mask directly, that causes the oppsite results from those expected in<br> the framework of Noh world. I will also discuss similarities and differences between a<br> Noh mask and "Hello Kitty", which is a fictional character that also expresses countless<br> facial expressions without a mouth.