AlphaPsy

Chris, from mixing memory, has drawn my attention to a debate that currently takes place between Steven Pinker (the good) and George Lakoff (the bad). It was ignited by a very critical review of Lakoff's last book Whose Freedom? by Pinker. Lakoff responded to the review, and Chris offers his own rebuttal of Lakoff's defence. (Both the review and the answer can be read here, thanks to gene expression)

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As you might have noticed, japanese emoticons and american ones differ (see illustration below). An empirical study by psychologists from these two countries (still in press) suggests that people from this two cultures differ in the way they perceive emotions expressed on faces: while easterners focus on eyes, westerners look at the mouth. Although weak, this difference might prove sufficent to have lead each culture in using different styles of emoticons, Masaki Yuki and his colleagues argue.

Illustration: a japanese smiley on the left and an american/european one on the right

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