Individual differences in emoji comprehension: Gender, age, and culture

Chen, Yihua; Yang, Xingchen; Howman, Hannah; Filik, Ruth

Abstract

Emoji are an important substitute for non-verbal cues (such as facial expressions) in online written communication. So far, however, little is known about individual differences regarding how they are perceived. In the current study, we examined the influence of gender, age, and culture on emoji comprehension. Specifically, a sample of 523 participants across the UK and China completed an emoji classification task. In this task, they were presented with a series of emoji, each representing one of six facial emotional expressions, across four commonly used platforms (Apple, Android, WeChat, and Windows). Their task was to choose from one of six labels (happy, sad, angry, surprised, fearful, disgusted) which emotion was represented by each emoji. Results showed that all factors (age, gender, and culture) had a significant impact on how emojis were classified by participants. This has important implications when considering emoji use, for example, conversation with partners from different cultures.

Citation

Chen, Y., Yang, X., Howman, H., & Filik, R. (2024). Individual differences in emoji comprehension: Gender, age, and culture. PLoS ONE, 19(2), Article e0297379. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0297379

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 29, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Feb 14, 2024
• Publication Date: 2024
• Deposit Date: Feb 15, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 15, 2024
• Journal: PLoS ONE
• Electronic ISSN: 1932-6203
• Publisher: Public Library of Science
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 19
• Issue: 2
• Article Number: e0297379
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0297379
• Keywords: Emotions; Face recognition; Facial expressions; Face; Elderly; Social communication; Young adults; Communications
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/31448466
• Publisher URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0297379