Handbook of Emotions, Fourth Edition by Lisa Feldman Barrett Michael Lewis & Jeannette M. Haviland-Jones

Author:Lisa Feldman Barrett, Michael Lewis & Jeannette M. Haviland-Jones [Michael Lewis, Jeannette M. Haviland-Jones, Lisa Feldman Barrett]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781462525362
Publisher: The Guilford Press

BEYOND THE FACE AND VOICE: TOWARD A SCIENCE OF MULTIPLE MODALITIES OF EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION

Emotional expression is a multimodal phenomenon. Darwin (1872/1998) himself referred to facial muscle movements and vocalizations, but also autonomic responses (the blush, pupil activity), movements of the arms and hands (clapping), shifts in posture, head movements, gestures, respiration, and full-body actions like jumping and dancing about. Darwin’s emphasis on dynamic behavior is also of note. With a few notable exceptions (see Krumhuber, Kappas, & Manstead, 2013; Nelson & Russell, 2011a, 2011b, for a review) though, the literature on facial expression has focused on static photos. Yet a great deal of information is likely contained in dynamic movement.

For the most part, however, the empirical literature on expression has removed the body from systematic inquiry (but see Atkinson, Dittrich, Gemmell, & Young, 2004; Kret, Pichon, Grèzes, & De Gelder, 2011, for exceptions) and focused narrowly on facial muscle movements or vocalizations. Attention to emotions like pride and embarrassment has necessitated the study of head, gaze, and bodily movements (Keltner, 1995; Tracy & Robins, 2004, 2007). There are select studies of other channels of nonverbal behavior, such as how emotions are communicated in patterns of posture (Dael, Mortillaro, & Scherer, 2012; Gross, Crane, & Fredrickson, 2010) and gaze (Graham & LaBar, 2007; Lobmaier, Tiddeman, & Perret, 2008; Sander, Grandjean, Kaiser, Wehrle, & Scherer, 2007). Clearly, Darwin’s (1872/1998) more comprehensive analysis suggests that there should be signal value in how emotions are communicated in a vast array of communicative behaviors, from simple movements of the hands to shifts in body posture to head movements. Relatively little is known about these intriguing possibilities.

Several recent studies have begun to capture how people convey emotion in tactile contact (Hertenstein & Weiss, 2011). Studying touch poses methodological challenges. Touch is dyadic, involves multiple regions of the body, and has many dimensions, including pressure, duration, location, and intensity. Touch does not lend itself to portrayals in classes of stimuli that can be used in typical emotion recognition paradigms. Notwithstanding these methodological issues, progress is being made in understanding which emotions have tactile signals.

Hertenstein and colleagues (Hertenstein, Keltner, App, Bulleit, & Jaskolka, 2006; Hertenstein, Holmes, McCullough, & Keltner, 2009) have begun to ascertain which emotions can be conveyed by touch. In a first study, an encoder (the person charged with touching another person to convey emotion) and decoder (the person being touched) sat at a table, separated by an opaque black curtain, which prevented communication other than touch. The encoder was given a list of emotions and asked to make contact with the decoder on the arm to communicate each emotion, using any form of touch. The decoder could not see any part of the touch because his or her arm was positioned on the encoder’s side of the curtain. After each touch, the decoder selected from 13 response options the term that best described what the person was communicating. In this study, participants could reliably communicate anger, disgust, and fear with a brief 1- or 2-second