Looking at the face and seeing the whole body. Neural basis of combined face and body expressions

Abstract

In the natural world, faces are not isolated objects but are rather encountered in the context of the whole body. Previous work has studied the perception of combined faces and bodies using behavioural and electrophysiological measurements, but the neural correlates of emotional face–body perception still remain unexplored. Here, we combined happy and fearful faces and bodies to investigate the influence of body expressions on the neural processing of the face, the effect of emotional ambiguity between the two and the role of the amygdala in this process. Our functional magnetic resonance imaging analyses showed that the activity in motor, prefrontal and visual areas increases when facial expressions are presented together with bodies rather than in isolation, consistent with the notion that seeing body expressions triggers both emotional and action-related processes. In contrast, psychophysiological interaction analyses revealed that amygdala modulatory activity increases after the presentation of isolated faces when compared to combined faces and bodies. Furthermore, a facial expression combined with a congruent body enhanced both cortical activity and amygdala functional connectivity when compared to an incongruent face–body compound. Finally, the results showed that emotional body postures influence the processing of facial expressions, especially when the emotion conveyed by the body implies danger.

Dynamic Interactions between Emotion Perception and Action Preparation for Reacting to Social Threat: A Combined cTBS-fMRI Study

“…Previously, an MEG experiment provided evidence for fast involvement (80-110 ms after stimulus onset) of IPL in discriminating between fearful and neutral body postures ( Meeren et al, 2016 ). One fMRI study ( Poyo Solanas et al, 2018 ) found significantly more activity in the IPL in response to body stimuli expressing fear in contrast to happiness, and moreover found increased responses in motor regions when fearful bodies were presented together with fearful faces, in contrast to bodies being presented in isolation. IPL activation was similarly found in a study contrasting the presentation of fearful bodies with two bodies expressing incongruent emotions ( de Borst and de Gelder, 2016 ).…”

“…The AMG is viewed as a major player in processing stimulus valence in humans ( Davis and Whalen, 2001 ; Baxter and Murray, 2002 ; Salzman and Fusi, 2010 ) and has been placed in the center of regulating defensive motor responses ( LeDoux and Daw, 2018 ). Amygdala activation is also associated with viewing whole-body expressions of threat ( Hadjikhani and de Gelder, 2003 ; Poyo Solanas et al, 2018 ), but this varies with the type of task and the relative roles of attention and awareness ( de Gelder et al, 2012 ). Combining findings about the activation of motor structures and the role of the amygdalae indicates that an important part of the underlying mechanism involves interactions between the amygdalae and motor structures.…”

Effect of Acute Physical Exercise on Executive Functions and Emotional Recognition: Analysis of Moderate to High Intensity in Young Adults

“…Studies, which are carried out by magnetic functional resonance (fMRI), have demonstrated that body emotional posture influence in facial expression processing (Poyo-Solanas et al, 2018). Moreover, it has been suggested that the regions that are in charge of processing dynamic body movements are linked to emotional and body recognition (Kumfor et al, 2018).…”

“…These processes of body-face recognition are related to brain regions, as the fusiform gyrus (Committeri et al, 2007;Yogev-Seligmann et al, 2008), cingulate cortex, superior temporal gyrus, motor areas, and cerebellum. The identification of body and contextual information is very relevant for emotional recognition (De Gelder, 2006;Aviezer et al, 2012;Poyo-Solanas et al, 2018).…”

Neural integration in body perception

“…This focus was motivated by the dominance of the ventral visual stream in person perception research to date (Kanwisher, 2010). However, recent body perception research has also shown that coupling between extended networks makes a contribution to emotional body perception Poyo Solanas et al, 2018). For example, using fMRI, Poyo Solanas and colleagues (2018) showed that when faces and bodies convey congruent compared to incongruent emotional signals, there is greater functional coupling between the amygdala and the anterior cingulate cortex.…”