著者

川合 伸幸

出版者

日本認知科学会

雑誌

認知科学 (ISSN:13417924)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.20, no.1, pp.46-58, 2013-03-01 (Released:2014-11-20)

参考文献数

35

被引用文献数

3

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