The Relative Contributions of Facial Expressions and Body Language to the Rapid Perception of Emotions

Abstract

Emotions are a key feature of daily social life yet most of the research on emotional expression and perception has focused on the static features of the face. However, dynamic movement information and body language also play a role in perceiving emotions. This study seeks to investigate whether the body or the face contributes more information when judging the emotions of others by creating a novel set of dynamic stimuli as well as examining the role of time in emotion perception. Because the stimuli are identical except for their manipulation to show either the face only, the body only, or both together as they appear in real life, the differences in performance between the face, body, and both can provide insight about their relative contributions to the perception of emotion. Furthermore, this study can compare differences between emotions as well as the effect of time exposure when perceiving emotions.