Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, UK.
Department of Psychology, City, University of London, UK.
Cognition. 2023 Jan;230:105260. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105260. Epub 2022 Sep 1.
Body posture and configuration provide important visual cues about the emotion states of other people. We know that bodily form is processed holistically, however, emotion recognition may depend on different mechanisms; certain body parts, such as the hands, may be especially important for perceiving emotion. This study therefore compared participants' emotion recognition performance when shown images of full bodies, or of isolated hands, arms, heads and torsos. Across three experiments, emotion recognition accuracy was above chance for all body parts. While emotions were recognized most accurately from full bodies, recognition performance from the hands was more accurate than for other body parts. Representational similarity analysis further showed that the pattern of errors for the hands was related to that for full bodies. Performance was reduced when stimuli were inverted, showing a clear body inversion effect. The high performance for hands was not due only to the fact that there are two hands, as performance remained well above chance even when just one hand was shown. These results demonstrate that emotions can be decoded from body parts. Furthermore, certain features, such as the hands, are more important to emotion perception than others. STATEMENT OF RELEVANCE: Successful social interaction relies on accurately perceiving emotional information from others. Bodies provide an abundance of emotion cues; however, the way in which emotional bodies and body parts are perceived is unclear. We investigated this perceptual process by comparing emotion recognition for body parts with that for full bodies. Crucially, we found that while emotions were most accurately recognized from full bodies, emotions were also classified accurately when images of isolated hands, arms, heads and torsos were seen. Of the body parts shown, emotion recognition from the hands was most accurate. Furthermore, shared patterns of emotion classification for hands and full bodies suggested that emotion recognition mechanisms are shared for full bodies and body parts. That the hands are key to emotion perception is important evidence in its own right. It could also be applied to interventions for individuals who find it difficult to read emotions from faces and bodies.
体态和姿势为他人的情绪状态提供了重要的视觉线索。我们知道，身体形态是整体加工的，然而，情绪识别可能依赖于不同的机制；某些身体部位，如手，对于感知情绪可能特别重要。因此，本研究比较了参与者在观看全身图像和孤立的手、手臂、头部和躯干图像时的情绪识别表现。在三个实验中，所有身体部位的情绪识别准确率都高于随机水平。虽然从全身识别情绪最准确，但手的识别准确率高于其他身体部位。代表性相似性分析进一步表明，手的错误模式与全身的错误模式有关。当刺激被倒置时，表现会降低，这表明存在明显的身体倒置效应。对手的高表现不仅仅是因为有两只手，即使只展示一只手，表现仍然远远高于随机水平。这些结果表明，可以从身体部位解码情绪。此外，某些特征，如手，对于情绪感知比其他特征更为重要。
成功的社交互动依赖于准确感知他人的情绪信息。身体提供了大量的情绪线索；然而，人们对情绪身体和身体部位的感知方式尚不清楚。我们通过比较身体部位和全身的情绪识别来研究这个感知过程。至关重要的是，我们发现，虽然从全身识别情绪最准确，但当看到孤立的手、手臂、头部和躯干的图像时，也可以准确地对情绪进行分类。在所展示的身体部位中，手的情绪识别最准确。此外，手和全身的情绪分类共享模式表明，全身和身体部位的情绪识别机制是共享的。手是情绪感知的关键，这本身就是一个重要的证据。它也可以应用于那些发现难以从面部和身体读取情绪的个体的干预措施。
