Person or puppet? The role of stimulus realism in attributing emotion to static body postures

Abstract

Knowledge of the relation between body posture and the perception of affect is limited. Existing studies of emotion attribution to static body postures vary in method, response modalities and nature of the stimulus. Integration of such results proves difficult, and it remains to be investigated how the relation can be researched best. In this study we focus on the role of stimulus realism. An experiment has been conducted where computer generated body postures in two realism conditions were shown to participants. Results indicate that higher realism not always results in increased agreement but clearly has an influence on the outcome for distinct emotions. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.