Body movement and emotion: Investigating the impact of audiovisual tempo manipulations on emotional arousal and valence

Abstract

The perception of emotions in humans moving can be influenced by several movement features such as fluidity, complexity, and tempo. Manipulations of movement tempo by acceleration or deceleration are widely employed in media, yet there has been limited research on how these affect perceived emotions. The current study examined how tempo-manipulated point-light displays (PLDs) of human dance-like movements, compared to their tempo-original counterparts, influence the perceived emotional arousal and valence by altering the tempo and hence the underlying movement characteristics. In an online perceptual experiment, we presented tempo-original and tempo-manipulated PLDs at three tempi, with and without synchronized drumbeats. Participants were asked to judge the PLDs based on their emotional arousal, valence, and naturalness. Results suggest that movements with higher fluidity were perceived as lower in arousal than those with low fluidity. Stimuli higher in naturalness were perceived to be more positive in valence than those low in naturalness. Audiovisual stimuli, including the drumbeats, received higher arousal but lower valence ratings than visual-only stimuli. Furthermore, decelerated movements were associated with increased fluidity compared to accelerated or tempo-original ones. Tempo deceleration was associated with lower naturalness compared to tempo-original movements. These findings indicate that tempo manipulation can be identified via kinematic feature changes, consequently altering emotional attributes perceived in the movements.