Abstract
Recognition of older people’s body expressions is a crucial social skill. We here investigate how age, not just of the observer, but also of the observed individual, affects this skill. Age may influence the ability to recognize other people’s body expressions by changes in one’s own ability to perform certain action over the life-span (i.e., an own-age bias may occur, with best recognition for one’s own age). Whole body point light displays of children, young adults and older adults (>70 years) expressing six different emotions were presented to observers of the same three age-groups. Across two variations of the paradigm, no evidence for the predicted own-age bias (a cross-over interaction between one’s own age and the observed person’s age) was found. Instead, experience effects were found with children better recognizing older actors’ expressions of ‘active emotions,’ such as anger and happiness with greater exposure in daily life. Together, the findings suggest that age-related changes in one own’s mobility only influences body expression categorization in young children who interact frequently with older adults.
Highlights
Recognition of the emotional state and intentions of others is a crucial skill for social interaction
An own age bias was hypothesized from the shared neural representation of action performance and observation, and the age-related constraints on one’s own body movements
The finding that body expression recognition was not clearly characterized by age-congruency in the present study effects seems to be in line with the facial expression literature, where the majority of studies found no evidence for an own-age bias in facial expression processing (Ebner, He & Johnson, 2011; Ebner, Johnson & Fischer, 2012; Ebner et al, 2013; Hühnel et al, 2014, but see Malatesta et al, 1987; Riediger et al, 2011)
Summary
Recognition of the emotional state and intentions of others is a crucial skill for social interaction. Cues from facial expressions, prosody and body movements all provide valuable information for rapid interpretation of the social environment and allow for the adjustment of one’s own behaviour to enhance social survival. Whereas most insights about the processing of social cues have been obtained from facial expressions, investigations of body posture and movement have become more prevalent. Cues from body movements and posture convey important information about the emotional state of people seen from a distance (De Gelder, 2009) and about the intensity of the emotion (Wallbott, 1998). Information from body posture and movements generally improve emotion recognition compared to when only the face is visible.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
