The authors of your text present a study by Masuda and his colleagues (2008) that examined cultural differences in social perception. They compared how participants perceived a central character when the surrounding characters in a picture either matched or mis-matched the central character's facial expression. When the central and peripheral characters' expressions did not match, Japanese participants were most likely to:.
a. keep their judgments the same as it would be if the peripheral people’s expressions matched.
b. think that the central character felt the opposite of the peripheral characters.
c. rate the central character more similarly to the peripheral characters.
d. rate all characters as being less emotional.

c. rate the central character more similarly to the peripheral characters.

Explanation:

According to Takahiko Masuda, Phoebe Ellsworth and Batja Mesquita in their research work titled " Placing the face in context: Cultural differences in the perception of facial emotion".

They found out that, Japanese are more influenced by the surrounding people or people around them when it comes to incorporating information from the social context, such that, Japanese view emotional feelings as a collective feelings, which is inseparable from the feelings of the group, unlike the Westerners whose view of emotional feeling is more of individual rather than collective feelings.

Hence, in this case, when the central and peripheral characters' expressions did not match, Japanese participants were most likely to rate the central character more similarly to the peripheral characters.

answer; no longer than a reasonable period of time;