Abstract
Emotion can be communicated through multiple distinct modalities. However, an often-ignored channel of communication is posture. Recent research indicates that bodily posture plays an important role in the perception of emotion. However, research examining postural communication of emotion is limited by the variety of validated emotion poses and unknown cohesion of categorical and dimensional ratings. The present study addressed these limitations. Specifically, we examined individuals’ (1) categorization of emotion postures depicting 5 discrete emotions (joy, sadness, fear, anger, and disgust), (2) categorization of different poses depicting the same discrete emotion, and (3) ratings of valence and arousal for each emotion pose. Findings revealed that participants successfully categorized each posture as the target emotion, including disgust. Moreover, participants accurately identified multiple distinct poses within each emotion category. In addition to the categorical responses, dimensional ratings of valence and arousal revealed interesting overlap and distinctions between and within emotion categories. These findings provide the first evidence of an identifiable posture for disgust and instantiate the principle of equifinality of emotional communication through the inclusion of distinct poses within emotion categories. Additionally, the dimensional ratings corroborated the categorical data and provide further granularity for future researchers to consider in examining how distinct emotion poses are perceived.
Highlights
Emotional expressions communicate individuals’ mental states, goals, and likely behaviors
A growing body of research demonstrates that other expressive channels are important for emotion perception
We examined categorical agreement and systematic miscategorization for each posture, and whether particular poses were more recognizable than others in the same emotion category
Summary
Emotional expressions communicate individuals’ mental states, goals, and likely behaviors (see Fridlund, 1994; Parkinson, 2005). A growing body of research demonstrates that other expressive channels are important for emotion perception (for reviews, see Matsumoto et al, 2010; Barrett et al, 2011; de Gelder and Van den Stock, 2011a; Hassin et al, 2013). Prior research has not determined (1) whether a posture of disgust can be reliably identified, (2) how different postural poses within emotion categories are recognized, those expressing distinct action tendencies, and (3) the correspondence between categorical and dimensional ratings of emotion postures. This investigation addressed each of these gaps in the literature
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