Your Face and Moves Seem Happier When I Smile Facial Action Influences the Perception of Emotional Faces and Biological Motion Stimuli

• In this experiment, we replicated the effect of muscle engagement on perception such that the recognition of another's facial expressions was biased by the observer's facial muscular activity (Blaesi & Wilson, 2010). We extended this replication to show that such a modulatory effect is also observed for the recognition of dynamic bodily expressions. Via a multitab and within-subjects approach, we investigated the emotion recognition of point-tight biological walkers, along with that of morphed face stimuli, white subjects were or were not holding a pen in their teeth. Under the pen-in-the-teeth condition, participants tended to tower their threshold of perception of happy expressions in facial stimuli compared to the no-pen condition, thus replicating the experiment by Blaesi and Wilson (2010). A similar effect was found for the biological motion stimuli such that participants Lowered their threshold to perceive happy walkers in the pen-in-the-teeth condition compared to the no-pen condition. This pattern of results was also found in a second experiment in which the no-pen condition was replaced by a situation in which participants held a pen in their lips (pen-in-tips condition). These results suggested that facial muscular activity alters the recognition of not only facial expressions but also bodily expressions.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

face

emotions

biological motion

mirror neurons

embodied cognition

Psychology

psykologi

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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