Chinese and British people interpret the same emoji differently.
Sending text messages without using emojis has become unthinkable, because these icons are an integral part of global online communication. However, the question arises: do we really understand each other correctly?
A team of researchers from the University of Nottingham conducted a large-scale study involving more than 500 adults from the UK and China. Scientists have come to the conclusion that some "universal" facial expressions may lose their universality when moving into the world of emojis. The person on the other side of the screen can interpret emojis differently depending on the age, cultural background, and even gender of the other person.
For example, Chinese users can use a smile emoji to express sarcasm or displeasure, while in the UK the same symbol is usually associated with joy and happiness.
For the study, the team recruited 253 Chinese and 270 British Internet users between the ages of 18 and 84 using online survey platforms. Participants were asked to rate emojis depicting six different emotions-happiness, disgust, fear, sadness, surprise, and anger-on four different platforms: Apple, Android, Windows, and the Chinese chat app WeChat. By analyzing the responses, the researchers examined how much the participants ' interpretations matched up with pre-determined labels.
They found that with age, the accuracy of matching labels for emojis expressing surprise, fear, sadness, and anger decreases. At the same time, women were more likely than men to correctly guess the purpose of emojis expressing happiness, fear, sadness and anger. Interestingly, no gender differences were found for the surprise and disgust emojis. The researchers also found that British participants were more accurate in matching emojis with their assigned labels to express happiness, fear, sadness, anger, and surprise, while Chinese participants were better at matching emojis of disgust.
Ruth Filick, associate professor at the University of Nottingham's School of Psychology and lead author of the study, said the results reflect differences in emoji interpretation, rather than the accuracy of their understanding. For example, the use of a smiling emoji by Chinese participants to express sarcasm makes them less likely to associate it with happiness compared to participants from the UK.
The findings of individual differences in emoji interpretation can have far-reaching consequences that go beyond ordinary text communication, according to the authors of the study. The increased use of emojis may have an impact in areas such as digital advertising, where multinational corporations may need to use different emojis for marketing purposes in different countries.
Sending text messages without using emojis has become unthinkable, because these icons are an integral part of global online communication. However, the question arises: do we really understand each other correctly?
A team of researchers from the University of Nottingham conducted a large-scale study involving more than 500 adults from the UK and China. Scientists have come to the conclusion that some "universal" facial expressions may lose their universality when moving into the world of emojis. The person on the other side of the screen can interpret emojis differently depending on the age, cultural background, and even gender of the other person.
For example, Chinese users can use a smile emoji to express sarcasm or displeasure, while in the UK the same symbol is usually associated with joy and happiness.
For the study, the team recruited 253 Chinese and 270 British Internet users between the ages of 18 and 84 using online survey platforms. Participants were asked to rate emojis depicting six different emotions-happiness, disgust, fear, sadness, surprise, and anger-on four different platforms: Apple, Android, Windows, and the Chinese chat app WeChat. By analyzing the responses, the researchers examined how much the participants ' interpretations matched up with pre-determined labels.
They found that with age, the accuracy of matching labels for emojis expressing surprise, fear, sadness, and anger decreases. At the same time, women were more likely than men to correctly guess the purpose of emojis expressing happiness, fear, sadness and anger. Interestingly, no gender differences were found for the surprise and disgust emojis. The researchers also found that British participants were more accurate in matching emojis with their assigned labels to express happiness, fear, sadness, anger, and surprise, while Chinese participants were better at matching emojis of disgust.
Ruth Filick, associate professor at the University of Nottingham's School of Psychology and lead author of the study, said the results reflect differences in emoji interpretation, rather than the accuracy of their understanding. For example, the use of a smiling emoji by Chinese participants to express sarcasm makes them less likely to associate it with happiness compared to participants from the UK.
The findings of individual differences in emoji interpretation can have far-reaching consequences that go beyond ordinary text communication, according to the authors of the study. The increased use of emojis may have an impact in areas such as digital advertising, where multinational corporations may need to use different emojis for marketing purposes in different countries.
