从你的表情和手势 就可以看出你是哪国人!

The accents that creep into the way we speak can reveal a lot about where we are from， but there are also subtle clues visible in our faces and the way we move.

While leafing through some old research papers， Hillary Elfenbein noticed something strange about the photographs in one famous study. The research from the late 1980s had asked volunteers if they were able to identify emotions in the faces of Japanese and Caucasian people. Some of the “Japanese” faces were posed by Japanese-Americans， the rest by Japanese nationals.

When Elfenbein herself looked at photographs， she realised that she could tell which were which. Her collaborator， Abby Marsh， found that she could too. So they ran an experiment.

They found that the Americans they tested were also strangely good at spotting who was Japanese and who was Japanese-American， even though they were all ethnically the same. When the two groups held neutral expressions， people could barely differentiate between them. But when they showed their feelings， especially sadness， something from Japan or America seemed to emerge.

You may have had this experience yourself， if you’ve ever been abroad and felt suddenly convinced that a passing stranger is one of your fellow countrymen. At times the signal may be obvious.

If you’ve seen the film Inglourious Basterds， you will know that German and British people indicate the number three with their fingers in different ways. Germans raise their thumb and first two fingers; Britons pin the little finger with their thumb and raise the rest. Most never realise that this difference exists until they see the alternative， which， to them， looks strange.

Some signals may be random quirks that happened to catch on. Others may have served a purpose. Vladimir Putin is said to display his KGB weapons training in the way he walks， with his “gun arm” hanging motionless by his side.

Since their initial discovery， Marsh and Elfenbein have detected more of these “non-verbal accents” physical ways in which we show where we come from without realising. Americans， for example， can spot Australians from the way they smile， wave or walk.

More recent research supports their findings. A team at the University of Glasgow has now trained a computer to recognise and then generate more than 60 different non-verbal accents on a simulated face. Subtle， almost indecipherable differences in the way a nose wrinkles and a lip is raised were often all that differentiated them. But when East Asians were shown these artificial “East Asian” expressions， they recognised them much more easily than “Western” ones.

The presence of these subtle cues might help to explain the bias that can creep into our thinking about people from different backgrounds. As we’ve seen， non-verbal accents often have the effect of making outsiders more difficult to understand.

At the very least， when people really want to understand each other， non-verbal accents show us that it’s good to talk.

我們说话时不经意间流露出的口音很大程度上会暴露我们是哪里人，但从我们的表情、手势和走路姿势也可以察觉到微妙的线索。

在翻阅一些旧论文时，希拉里·埃尔芬拜因注意到一项著名研究的照片中有一些奇怪的东西。上世纪80年代末的这项研究询问志愿者是否能识别日本人和高加索人脸上的表情。一些长着“日本脸”的人是日裔美国人，其余的是日本人。

当埃尔芬拜因观察那些照片时，她意识到自己能辨认出哪些是日裔美国人，哪些是日本人。她的合作者艾比·马什发现她也可以。于是她们就开展了一项实验。

她们发现，接受测试的美国人也不可思议地善于辨别日本人和日裔美国人，即使二者是同一种族。当两个群体都面带中性表情时，人们几乎难以区分。但当他们开始表露情绪，尤其是悲伤情绪时，日本或美国的一些特质就开始显现出来。

你自己也许也有过这种经历，如果你曾经出过国，突然间很确信走过你身边的一个陌生人就是你的同胞。有时候这种信号也许很明显。

如果你曾看过电影《无耻混蛋》，你会知道德国人和英国人用手指表示数字3的方式是不同的。德国人竖起大拇指、食指和中指，而英国人用大拇指压住小指，竖起其他三根手指。多数人从未意识到这种差异的存在，直到他们发现另外一种方式，在他们看来，这种方式很奇怪。

一些信号可能是偶然习得的一种随意的怪癖，而其他的信号也许是有用处的。据说从弗拉基米尔·普京的走路姿势可以看出他接受过苏联国家安全委员会（克格勃）的武器训练，因为他那只“持枪的手”不会摆动。

自从有了初步发现后，马什和埃尔芬拜因察觉到了更多这种“非言语特点”，这种肢体特点在我们不经意间暴露出自己是哪里人。举例而言，美国人可以从笑、招手或走路的方式识别出澳大利亚人。

新近的研究也支持了她们的发现。格拉斯哥大学的一个团队现在训练一台电脑识别并在一张模拟人脸上生成60多种不同的非言语特点。像皱鼻子、翘嘴这种几乎无法辨认的微妙差异往往就是识别的关键。但是东亚人识别“东亚”表情比识别“西方”表情要容易得多。

这种微妙线索的存在也许有助于解释对来自不同背景的人们不自觉产生的偏见。正如我们所看到的，非言语特点往往会让人们更难以理解外国人。

不过，起码当人们真的想理解对方时，非言语特点向我们展示了开口交谈的好处。