Emotional expressivity of the observer mediates recognition of affective states from human body movements

Bachmann, Julia; Zabicki, Adam; Munzert, Jörn; Krüger, Britta

doi:10.1080/02699931.2020.1747990

Cited by 17 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Stimuli were selected from a larger motion-capture data set created by Bachmann et al (2020). Eight pairs of non-professional actors were instructed to perform an interaction portraying one out of four emotional scenes: happiness, affection, sadness, or anger.…”

Section: Stimulimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To ensure a congruent behavioural pattern, actors were given a script of emotional situations and directed specifically to perform the same emotion. They were instructed to express their emotions intuitively within the context of the given situation, thereby allowing freedom and enhancing the variability of expression (Bachmann et al, 2020). Interactions were recorded with an optical motion capture system (Vicon Motion Systems, Oxford, England) operating at 100 Hz.…”

Section: Stimulimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This resulted in a set of 48 (4 emotions x 12 scenes) stimuli. For more information on stimulus creation and validation, see supplementary materials and Bachmann et al (2020).…”

Section: Stimulimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Affect expression occurs through combinations of verbal and nonverbal communication channels (Kleinsmith and Bianchi-Berthouze, 2013). To judge other people's emotional states reliably, information can be decoded through nonverbal communication channels such as facial expressions or body movements and posture (Clarke et al, 2005;de Gelder, 2006;Atkinson et al, 2007;de Gelder, 2009;Aviezer et al, 2012;Goldberg et al, 2015;Bachmann et al, 2018;Bachmann et al, 2020). Up to the present, most research in this field has focused on facial expressions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…EBL is described as behaviour used to express emotions via the whole body coordinated in its movements across multiple joints and often accompanied by a meaningful action (de Gelder, 2006;Gross et al, 2012). This indicates that the use of space or the arrangement of body posture, gestures, trunk, and arm movements are tools through which the body can express an emotion (Paterson et al, 2001;Pollick et al, 2001;Michalak et al, 2009;Kleinsmith and Bianchi-Berthouze, 2013;Poyo Solanas et al, 2020;Bachmann et al, 2020). In contrast to facial expressions, EBL is often more reliable, accessible, and actionoriented; and it can be identified even when the face is not clearly visible (Van den Stock et al, 2007;Goldberg et al, 2015;Bachmann et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Decoding spatiotemporal features of emotional body language in social interactions

Keck¹,

Zabicki²,

Bachmann³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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How are emotions perceived through body language in human interactions? Although emotion perception is a complex phenomenon integrating various features, humans are highly adept at recognizing and expressing emotions through body movements within social interactions. This study used point-light displays of social interactions portraying emotional scenes to address two issues. First, we examined quantitative intrapersonal kinematic and postural body configurations. Second, we calculated interaction-specific parameters and analysed how far both contribute to emotion and valence perception. By using ANOVA and classification trees we investigated emotion-specific differences in the calculated parameters. Further, we applied representational similarity analyses to determine how perceptual ratings relate to intra- and interpersonal features. Results showed that within an interaction, intrapersonal kinematic cues corresponded to emotional ratings, whereas postural cues reflected valence ratings. Furthermore, perception of emotional content was driven by interpersonal orientation, proxemics, the time spent in the personal space of the counterpart, and the balance in motion energy between interacting people. Both the latter and balance in orientation related to valence ratings. Hence, intrapersonal and interpersonal features of emotional body language relate to not only the emotional content in human interactions but also their perception.

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Section: Stimulimentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Stimulimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This resulted in a set of 48 (4 emotions x 12 scenes) stimuli. For more information on stimulus creation and validation, see supplementary materials and Bachmann et al (2020).…”

Section: Stimulimentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Decoding spatiotemporal features of emotional body language in social interactions

Keck¹,

Zabicki²,

Bachmann³

et al. 2022

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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Emotionen – Modelle der Emotionalität als Grundlage körperpsychotherapeutischer Praxis

Geuter

2023

Psychotherapie: Praxis

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The McNorm library: creating and validating a new library of emotionally expressive whole body dance movements

Smith

Cross

2022

Psychological Research

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The ability to exchange affective cues with others plays a key role in our ability to create and maintain meaningful social relationships. We express our emotions through a variety of socially salient cues, including facial expressions, the voice, and body movement. While significant advances have been made in our understanding of verbal and facial communication, to date, understanding of the role played by human body movement in our social interactions remains incomplete. To this end, here we describe the creation and validation of a new set of emotionally expressive whole-body dance movement stimuli, named the Motion Capture Norming (McNorm) Library, which was designed to reconcile a number of limitations associated with previous movement stimuli. This library comprises a series of point-light representations of a dancer’s movements, which were performed to communicate to observers neutrality, happiness, sadness, anger, and fear. Based on results from two validation experiments, participants could reliably discriminate the intended emotion expressed in the clips in this stimulus set, with accuracy rates up to 60% (chance = 20%). We further explored the impact of dance experience and trait empathy on emotion recognition and found that neither significantly impacted emotion discrimination. As all materials for presenting and analysing this movement library are openly available, we hope this resource will aid other researchers in further exploration of affective communication expressed by human bodily movement.

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Emotional expressivity of the observer mediates recognition of affective states from human body movements

Cited by 17 publications

References 44 publications

Decoding spatiotemporal features of emotional body language in social interactions

Decoding spatiotemporal features of emotional body language in social interactions

Emotionen – Modelle der Emotionalität als Grundlage körperpsychotherapeutischer Praxis

The McNorm library: creating and validating a new library of emotionally expressive whole body dance movements

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