Abstract
The interrelation between motor and emotional processes has been a recurrent question since several decades in the scientific literature. An interesting experimental technique to explore this question is posturography which assess the modulation of human postural control. In an emerging scientific field, this technique has been used to explore the reaction of the body in different emotional conditions. However, among available studies, some inconsistencies appear. In this brief report, we want to show how a widely used experimental model, i.e., empathy for pain, allowed in several study to provide comprehensive understanding elements on the postural correlates of socioemotional information processing. In particular, the role of mental simulation is discussed.
Highlights
The investigation of the link between emotional and motor processes fits into a long scientific tradition already theorized by Darwin [1]
As compared to other techniques such as EEG and EMG that explore other sides of the motor correlates of socioemotional information processing, posturography is distinguished by two original aspects: (i) the very peripheral nature of the measurement collected, which certainly leads to a certain latency in its implementation, but which makes it possible to measure the motor output stage, testifying to the effective modulation of posture; (ii) the fact that the participant is not asked to perform any task, making it possible to record the processes at work in a more ecological environment than that which would be constrained by an experimental task
The use of posturography to investigate the peripheral correlates of socioemotional information processing remains recent
Summary
The investigation of the link between emotional and motor processes fits into a long scientific tradition already theorized by Darwin [1]. A well-recognized experimental model to study this link is empathy for pain which uses classical visual stimuli depicting painful or non-painful scenes (pictures depicting painful or non-painful situations involving the hands or feet and selected from a more extensive database, previously validated; [19]) and compares responses induced in participants by these conditions on different levels In this perspective paper, we want to shed light on our main results obtained in studies that used pain simulation and empathy for pain to broadly explore the postural modulation induced by emotional processing. Taking into account the temporal dynamic of the responses, it was possible to report a significant posterior displacement of the COP in the anteroposterior direction (indexing a withdrawal) in response to pain as compared to the non-painful visual scenes at the 4th, 11th and 12th seconds of the stimulus presentation These differences were demonstrated in the mental simulation condition but not in the passive observation condition.
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