Fast emotional embodiment can modulate sensory exposure in perceivers

Abstract

Fear and disgust expressions are not arbitrary social cues. Expressing fear maximizes sensory exposure (e.g., increases visual and nasal input), whereas expressing disgust reduces sensory exposure (e.g., decreases visual and nasal input).¹ A similar effect of these emotional expressions has recently been found to modify sensory exposure at the level of the central nervous system (attention) in people perceiving these expressions.² At an attentional level, sensory exposure is increased when perceiving fear and reduced when perceiving disgust. These findings suggest that response preparations are transmitted by expressers to perceivers. However, the processes involved in the transmission of such emotional action tendencies remain unclear. We suggest that emotional contagion by means of grounded cognition theories could be a simple, ecological and straight-forward explanation of this effect. The contagion through embodied simulation of others’ emotional states with simple, efficient and very fast facial mimicry may represent the underlying process.

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Figures and Tables

Figure 1 Schematic overview of a typical trial with a stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of 213 milliseconds in the study by Vermeulen et al.2 Each trial started by presenting a facial expression of fear or disgust directly followed by the rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP). Each stimulus was presented one at a time in the centre of the screen for 53 ms. After the participants entered the target words (T1 and T2) they saw, they had to decide whether the second face expressed a same or a different emotion than the fist face they saw.

Figure 2 The influence of the emotion prime on second target detection (T2) depends on the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). In the study by Vermeulen et al.2 the report of T2 targets was significantly better (p < 0.001) if preceded by a disgust face than by a fear face. Compared to a “No face prime” condition from another study,9 at an SOA of 213 ms, a decrease appears for fear faces, whereas disgust seems to increase T2 report.

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