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Body actions change the appearance of facial expressions

PLoS ONE (2014) 9(9)
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0108211
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Abstract

Perception, cognition, and emotion do not operate along segregated pathways; rather, their adaptive interaction is supported by various sources of evidence. For instance, the aesthetic appraisal of powerful mood inducers like music can bias the facial expression of emotions towards mood congruency. In four experiments we showed similar mood-congruency effects elicited by the comfort/discomfort of body actions. Using a novel Motor Action Mood Induction Procedure, we let participants perform comfortable/uncomfortable visually-guided reaches and tested them in a facial emotion identification task. Through the alleged mediation of motor action induced mood, action comfort enhanced the quality of the participant's global experience (a neutral face appeared happy and a slightly angry face neutral), while action discomfort made a neutral face appear angry and a slightly happy face neutral. Furthermore, uncomfortable (but not comfortable) reaching improved the sensitivity for the identification of emotional faces and reduced the identification time of facial expressions, as a possible effect of hyper-arousal from an unpleasant bodily experience.

Figures

  • Figure 1. Random dot rod, action settings and facial stimulus set. A stereogram representing a frontal view of the random dot rod used in the our reaching blocks together with the red sphere used to provide a visual feedback of the index finger (cross-fuse) is shown in (a). A sketch of action settings used in comfortable (b) and uncomfortable (c) reaching blocks. The facial stimulus set is illustrated in (d): the top row shows the 6 faces of the happy-angry continuum (including percentages of extreme anger in the 25–75 per cent range, and complementary percentages of extreme happiness) and the fully happy (left) and fully angry (right) expressions used to generate the morph continuum, belonging to the fourth character of the bottom row; the bottom row shows the 8 characters selected from the Radboud database, displaying the ‘‘neutral’’ expression obtained by morphing the fully happy and fully angry expressions in equal percentages (50 per cent each). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0108211.g001
  • Figure 2. Subjective estimate of action discomfort increases with reaching distance. Average relative rating of action discomfort as a function of reaching distance (measured relative to individual arm length) collected in the preliminary experiment. Small dots represent individual color-coded average ratings for 7 equal intervals of relative reaching distance. The larger red dots represent the global average ratings 6 SEM. The black line is the generalized linear model regression curve and the shaded region represents 6 standard error of the regression. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0108211.g002
  • Figure 3. Distributions of percentages of ‘‘angry’’ responses and RTs. The 4 panels depict the average percentages of ‘‘angry’’ responses (a, b panels) and RTs (c, d panels) [6 SEM] as a function of per cent anger, after the comfortable/uncomfortable (red/blue symbols, respectively) reaching blocks and in the absence of action (green symbols). Red and blue curves in a, b panels are the best average cumulative Gaussian fits of response percentages, with shaded bands indicating 6 standard error of regression. Green curves represent the average distributions, 6 SEM, obtained in Experiment 3. The pink line represents the average PSN, 6 SEM, obtained in Experiment 4. Data in the left panels (a, c) refer to Experiment 1 (comfortable-uncomfortable order); data in the right panels (b, d) refer to Experiment 2 (opposite order). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0108211.g003
  • Figure 4. Action comfort/discomfort biases the perception of facial emotions. Average PSNs (a) and JNDs (b), 6 SEM, for the comfortable (red) and uncomfortable (blue) reaching blocks in Experiments 1 (comfortable R uncomfortable) and 2 (uncomfortable R comfortable) as coded along the x-axis. Horizontal green and violet lines represent the baseline scores, 6 SEM, obtained in Experiments 3 and 4. In (a) these scores are the reference for evaluating the biasing effects of action comfort/discomfort, with PSNs larger than the baseline indicating an overall happiness superiority, and PSNs smaller than the baseline indicating an anger superiority. In (b) values below the green line indicate a precision improvement induced by the reaching block. (c) Individual PSN difference between uncomfortable and comfortable reaching sessions in Experiments 1 (light grey) and 2 (dark grey). A negative value represents an increased likelihood of perceiving a facial expression as being angry after the uncomfortable block. (d) Individual JND difference between uncomfortable and comfortable reaching sessions in Experiments 1 (light grey) and 2 (dark grey). A negative value represents a stronger improvement in facial expression sensitivity after the uncomfortable (rather than comfortable) block. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0108211.g004

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CITATION STYLE

APA

Fantoni, C., & Gerbino, W. (2014). Body actions change the appearance of facial expressions. PLoS ONE, 9(9). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0108211

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