London, Aug 18 - Asians tend to have a tougher time than Europeans when it comes to telling the difference between a face that looks fearful versus surprised, disgusted versus angry, according to a new study.

'We show that easterners and westerners look at different face features to read facial expressions,' said Rachael E. Jack of The University of Glasgow (U-G).

'Westerners look at the eyes and the mouth in equal measure, whereas easterners favour the eyes and neglect the mouth. This means that easterners have difficulty distinguishing facial expressions that look similar around the eye region,' Jack added.

The discovery shows that human communication of emotion is a lot more complex than experts had believed, said researchers led by Roberto Caldara, U-G.

As a result, facial expressions that had been considered universally recognizable cannot be used to reliably convey emotion in cross-cultural situations.