Shadows Alter Facial Expressions of Noh Masks

Nobuyuki Kawai, Hiromitsu Miyata, Ritsuko Nishimura and Kazuo Okanoya

PLOS ONE, 2013, vol. 8, issue 8, 1-6

Abstract: Background: A Noh mask, worn by expert actors during performance on the Japanese traditional Noh drama, conveys various emotional expressions despite its fixed physical properties. How does the mask change its expressions? Shadows change subtly during the actual Noh drama, which plays a key role in creating elusive artistic enchantment. We here describe evidence from two experiments regarding how attached shadows of the Noh masks influence the observers’ recognition of the emotional expressions. Methodology/Principal Findings: In Experiment 1, neutral-faced Noh masks having the attached shadows of the happy/sad masks were recognized as bearing happy/sad expressions, respectively. This was true for all four types of masks each of which represented a character differing in sex and age, even though the original characteristics of the masks also greatly influenced the evaluation of emotions. Experiment 2 further revealed that frontal Noh mask images having shadows of upward/downward tilted masks were evaluated as sad/happy, respectively. This was consistent with outcomes from preceding studies using actually tilted Noh mask images. Conclusions/Significance: Results from the two experiments concur that purely manipulating attached shadows of the different types of Noh masks significantly alters the emotion recognition. These findings go in line with the mysterious facial expressions observed in Western paintings, such as the elusive qualities of Mona Lisa’s smile. They also agree with the aesthetic principle of Japanese traditional art “yugen (profound grace and subtlety)”, which highly appreciates subtle emotional expressions in the darkness.

Date: 2013
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0071389 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 71389&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0071389

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0071389

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().