title: [Comprehension of emotions accompanied by everyday actions: comparison of biological-motion pictures with real-person pictures].
abstract: Forty participants viewed and interpreted videotapes that were composed of displays representing different human actions (e.g., running and washing hands) and emotions (pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant). Half the videotapes were usual movies of real persons and the other videotapes were biological motions as produced by 22 light points on a human body in otherwise total darkness. In each display, an expert or a novice played a series of large or small body actions under each emotion. We found that (1) pleasant-unpleasant feeling was well discriminated in the real-person displays and in the biological motion display of large body actions, but it was less discriminated in the biological-motion displays of small body actions, (2) actions by experts were rated to be pleasant, and (3) actions were successfully identified for the real displays of large actions by experts, but they were poorly identified for the biological-motion displays of small body actions by novices. These results suggested that the observers correctly judged the emotion of players that was represented through suitable actions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Faculty of Letters, Ritsumeikan University, Tojiin Kitamachi, Kita-ku, Kyoto 603-8577, Japan. achan@lt.ritsumei.ac.jp
authors.forename: Atsuki
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Higashiyama
authors.forename: Hisato
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Imoto
authors.forename: Seiichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tsuinashi
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D005868:Gestures; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D014743:Videotape Recording