Jumping for Joy: The Importance of the Body and of Dynamics in the Expression and Recognition of Positive Emotions

Abstract

The majority of research on emotion expression has focused on static facial prototypes of a few selected, mostly negative emotions. Implicitly, most researchers seem to have considered all positive emotions as sharing one common signal (namely, the smile), and consequently as being largely indistinguishable from each other in terms of expression. Recently, a new wave of studies has started to challenge the traditional assumption by considering the role of multiple modalities and the dynamics in the expression and recognition of positive emotions. Based on these recent studies, we suggest that positive emotions are better expressed and correctly perceived when (a) they are communicated simultaneously through the face and body and (b) perceivers have access to dynamic stimuli. Notably, we argue that this improvement is comparatively more important for positive emotions than for negative emotions. Our view is that the misperception of positive emotions has fewer immediate and potentially life-threatening consequences than the misperception of negative emotions; therefore, from an evolutionary perspective, there was only limited benefit in the development of clear, quick signals that allow observers to draw fine distinctions between them. Consequently, we suggest that the successful communication of positive emotions requires a stronger signal than that of negative emotions, and that this signal is provided by the use of the body and the way those movements unfold. We hope our contribution to this growing field provides a new direction and a theoretical grounding for the many lines of empirical research on the expression and recognition of positive emotions.

Behavioral and Physiological Responses to Visual Interest and Appraisals: Multimodal Analysis and Automatic Recognition

“…All participants leaned toward the screen when a new image appeared on the screen (attention toward a novel stimulus), but only when the stimulus was interesting they maintained the posture and remain engaged; when the stimulus was not interesting they would go back to the resting position, distancing themselves from the screen. This is in line with recent work that points toward the important role of dynamics and bodily movements to define the nonverbal expression of positive emotions (Mortillaro et al, 2011;Dael et al, 2012;Dukes et al, 2017;Mortillaro and Dukes, 2018). It is important to note, that in terms of appraisals we found correlations with Action Units that are in line with the most recent empirical evidence (Scherer et al, 2018).…”

“…Researchers investigated other expressive modalities beyond facial expression, in particular the bodily movements that accompany the experience of interest. The body may indeed play a special role in communicating specific positive emotions (Tracy and Robins, 2004;Gonzaga et al, 2006;Dukes et al, 2017;Mortillaro and Dukes, 2018). A survey on body expression and perception identified body postures and head pose to be related to expression of interest and boredom (Kleinsmith and Bianchi-Berthouze, 2013).…”

The Qingdao Preschooler Facial Expression Set: Acquisition and Validation of Chinese Children’s Facial Emotion Stimuli

“…For instance, pride usually consists of sitting up straight and holding one’s head up ( Tracy and Robins, 2008 ), amusement usually consists of a unique body shake, a tilt of the head ( Campos et al, 2013 ), and satisfaction usually consists of a motionless body and a small but rapid nod ( Campos et al, 2013 ). In addition, in a recent research ( Mortillaro and Dukes, 2018 ), facial dynamics and body representations were considered to be the critical elements for positive emotion differentiation. These could all be taken into further considerations.…”

fNIRS Evidence for Recognizably Different Positive Emotions

“…Hofmann et al (2017) examined the Duchenne Displays of 16 positive emotions proposed by Ekman (2003), and found they differed in the intensity of Duchenne Displays and the propensity to induce laughter. While these studies were mostly based on static facial features or body gestures, review Mortillaro and Duk’es (2018) also stressed the importance of the dynamic facial expressions and body movement to differentiate positive emotions.…”