Skip to main content

Attributing Emotion to Static Body Postures: Recognition Accuracy, Confusions, and Viewpoint Dependence

Journal of Nonverbal Behavior volume 28, pages 117–139 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

A total of 176 computer-generated mannequin figures were produced from descriptions of postural expressions of emotion in order to investigate the attribution of emotion to static body postures. Each posture was rendered from 3 viewing angles and presented to participants in a forced-decision task. Concordance rates for attributions of 6 emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise) ranged from zero for many disgust postures to over 90 percent for some anger and sadness postures. Anatomical variables and viewing angle were shown to predict participants' responses. Analysis of the confusion matrix suggested a circumplex solution with happiness and surprise sharing a similar position, and few confusions between the other four emotions. The means by which emotions may be attributed to static body postures are discussed, as are avenues for further research.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

REFERENCES

  • Aronoff, J., Woike, B. A., & Hyman, L. M. (1992). Which are the stimuli in facial displays of anger and happiness? Configurational bases of emotion recognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62(6), 1050–1066.

    Google Scholar 

  • Banse, R., & Scherer, K. R. (1996). Acoustic profiles in vocal emotion expression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(3), 614–636.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berger, M. (1994). Psychological studies concerning human-structural dance. Dynamische Psychiatrie, 27(1–2), 50–66.

    Google Scholar 

  • Birdwhistell, R. L. (1975). Background considerations to the study of the body as a medium of ‘expression’. In J. Benthall & T. Polhemud (Eds.), The body as a medium of expression (pp. 36–58). Bungay, Suffolk: Allen.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boone, R. T., & Cunningham, J. G. (1998). Children's decoding of emotion in expressive body movement: The development of cue attunement. Developmental Psychology, 34, 1007–1016.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boone, R. T., & Cunningham, J. G. (2001). Children's expression of emotional meaning in music through expressive body movement. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 25(1), 21–41.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boucher, J. D., & Carlson, G. E. (1980). Recognition of facial expression in three cultures. Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology, 11, 263–280.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buck, R. (1991). Motivation, emotion, and cognition: A developmental-interactionalist view. In K. T. Strongman (Ed.), International review of studies on emotion. New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carroll, J. M., & Russell, J. A. (1996). Do facial expressions signal specific emotions? Judging emotion from the face in context. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 205–218.

    Google Scholar 

  • Daems, A., & Verfaillie, K. (1999). Viewpoint-dependent priming effects in the perception of human actions and body postures. Visual Cognition, 6(6), 665–693.

    Google Scholar 

  • Darwin, C. (1872;1965). The expression of the emotions in man and animals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • de Meijer, M. (1989). The contribution of general features of body movement to the attribution of emotions. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 13, 247–268.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dittrich, W. H., Troscianko, T., Lea, S. E. G., & Morgan, D. (1996). Perception of emotion from dynamic point-light displays represented in dance. Perception, 25, 727–738.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dosamantes-Beaudry, I. (1997). Somatic experience in psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 14(4), 517–530.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1984). Emotion facial action coding system (EM-FACS). San Francisco: University of California, San Francisco.

  • Ekman, P., Friesen, W. V., O'Sullivan, M., Diacoyanni-Tarlatzis, I., Krause, R., Pitcairn, T., et al. (1987). Univerals and cultural differences in the judgments of facial expressions of emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 712–717.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ekman, P., Hager, J. C., & Friesen, W. V. (1981). The symmetry of emotional and deliberate facial actions. Psychophysiology, 18, 101–106.

    Google Scholar 

  • Flack, W. F., Laird, J. D., & Cavallaro, L. A. (1999). Emotional expression and feeling in schizophrenia: Effects of specific expressive behaviors on emotional experiences. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 55(1), 1–20.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frank, M. G., & Stennett, J. (2001). The forced-choice paradigm and the perception of facial expression of emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(1), 75–85.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuchs, T. (1996). Bodily communication and related disorders. Zeitschrift Fur Klinische Psychologie Psychiatrie Und Psychotherapie, 44(4), 415–428.

    Google Scholar 

  • Furnham, A. (1999). Body language at work. Channel Islands: The Guernsey Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haidt, J., & Keltner, D. (1999). Culture and facial expression: Open-ended methods find more expressions and a gradient of recognition. Cognition and Emotion, 13(3), 225–266.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hirsch, M. (1994). The patient's body in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Psychotherapeut, 39(3), 153–157.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horstmann, G. (2003). What do facial expression convey: Feeling states, behavioral intentions, or action requests? Emotion, 3(2), 150–166.

    Google Scholar 

  • Inouye, K. S. (1998). Feature based coding of emotive body posture. Unpublished manuscript, Earlham College, IN.

    Google Scholar 

  • Izard, C. (1994). Innate and universal facial expression: Evidence from developmental and cross-cultural research. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 288–299.

    Google Scholar 

  • Izard, C. E. (1979). MAX training manual. Unpublished manuscript, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware.

    Google Scholar 

  • James, W. T. (1932). A study of the expression of body posture. Journal of General Psychology, 7, 405–437.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kourtzi, Z., & Kanwisher, N. (2000). Activation in human MT;MST by static images with implied motion. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12(1), 48–55.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mehrabian, A. (1981). Silent messages: Implicit communication of emotions and attitudes (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mesquita, B., & Frijda, N. H. (1992). Cultural variations in emotion: A review. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 179–204.

    Google Scholar 

  • Montepare, J., Koff, E., Zaitchik, D., & Albert, M. (1999). The use of body movements and gestures as cues to emotions in younger and older adults. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 23(2), 133–152.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murray, I. R., & Arnott, J. L. (1993). Toward the simulation of emotion in synthetic speech: A review of the literature on human vocal emotion. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 93(2), 1097–1108.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ortony, A., & Turner, T. J. (1990). What's basic about basic emotions? Psychological Review, 97, 315–331.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pollick, F. E., Paterson, H. M., Bruderlin, A., & Sanford, A. J. (2001). Perceiving affect from arm movement. Cognition, 82, B51–B61.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rinn, W. E. (1984). The neuropsychology of facial expression: A review of the neurological and psychological mechanisms for producing facial expression. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 52–77.

    Google Scholar 

  • Russell, J. A. (1991). Culture and the categorization of emotions. Psychological Bulletin, 110, 426–450.

    Google Scholar 

  • Russell, J. A. (1995). Facial expressions of emotion: What lies beyond minimal universality? Psychological Bulletin, 118, 379–391.

    Google Scholar 

  • Russell, J. A., & Barrett, L. F. (1999). Core affect, prototypical emotional episodes, and other things called Emotion: Dissecting the elephant. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(5), 805–819.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scherer, K. R. (1986). Vocal affect expression: A review and a model for future research. Psychological Bulletin, 99(2), 143–165.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scherer, K. R. (1995). Expression of emotion in voice and music. Journal of Voice, 9(3), 235–248.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schouwstra, S. J., & Hoogstraten, J. (1995). Head position and spinal position as determinants of perceived emotional state. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 81, 673–674.

    Google Scholar 

  • Skinner, M., & Mullen, B. (1991). Facial asymmetry in emotional expression: A meta-analysis of research. British Journal of Social Psychology, 30, 113–124.

    Google Scholar 

  • van Bezooijen, R., & Boves, L. (1986). The effects of low-pass filtering and random splicing on the perception of speech. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 15(5), 403–417.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walk, R. D., & Homan, C. P. (1984). Emotion and dance in dynamic light displays. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 22(5), 437–440.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walk, R. D., & Walters, K. L. (1988). Perception of the smile and other emotions of the body and face at different distances. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 26(6), 510–510.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wallbott, H. G. (1998). Bodily expression of emotion. European Journal of Social Psychology, 28(6), 879–896.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wallbott, H. G., & Scherer, K. R. (1986). Cues and channels in emotion recognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51(4), 690–699.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walters, K. L., & Walk, R. D. (1986). Perception of emotion from body posture. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 24(5), 329–329.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walters, K. L., & Walk, R. D. (1988). Perception of emotion from moving body cues in photographs. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 26(2), 112–114.

    Google Scholar 

  • Watson, D., & Tellegen, A. (1985). Toward a consensual structure of mood. Psychological Bulletin, 98, 219–235.

    Google Scholar 

  • Watson, D., & Tellegen, A. (1999). Issues in the dimensional structure of affect—Effects of descriptors, measurement error, and response formats: Comment on Russell and Carroll (1999). Psychological Bulletin, 125(5), 601–610.

    Google Scholar 

  • Watson, D., Wiese, D., Vaidya, J., & Tellegen, A. (1999). The two general activation systems of affect: Structural findings, evolutionary considerations, and psychobiological evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(5), 820–830.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wehrle, T., Kaiser, S., Schmidt, S., & Scherer, K. R. (2000). Studying the dynamics of emotional expression using synthesized facial muscle movements. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(1), 105–119.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yik, M. S. M., & Russell, J. A. (1999). Interpretation of faces: A cross-cultural study of a prediction from Fridlund's theory. Cognition and Emotion, 13(1), 93–104.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Health and Social Sciences, Middlesex University, Queensway, Enfield EN3 4SF, United Kingdom

    Mark Coulson

Authors
  1. Mark Coulson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Coulson, M. Attributing Emotion to Static Body Postures: Recognition Accuracy, Confusions, and Viewpoint Dependence. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 28, 117–139 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:JONB.0000023655.25550.be

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:JONB.0000023655.25550.be

  • emotion
  • expression
  • posture