title: Confidence in emotion perception in point-light displays varies with the ability to perceive own emotions.
abstract: One central issue in social cognitive neuroscience is that perceiving emotions in others relates to activating the same emotion in oneself. In this study we sought to examine how the ability to perceive own emotions assessed with the Toronto Alexithymia Scale related to both the ability to perceive emotions depicted in point-light displays and the confidence in these perceptions. Participants observed video scenes of human interactions, rated the depicted valence, and judged their confidence in this rating. Results showed that people with higher alexithymia scores were significantly less confident about their decisions, but did not differ from people with lower alexithymia scores in the valence of their ratings. Furthermore, no modulating effect of social context on the effect of higher alexithymia scores was found. It is concluded that the used stimuli are fit to investigate the kinematic aspect of emotion perception and possibly separate people with high and low alexithymia scores via confidence differences. However, a general difference in emotion perception was not detected in the present setting.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Sports Science, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Giessen, Germany. Britta.Lorey@sport.uni-giessen.de
authors.forename: Britta
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Lorey
authors.forename: Morten
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kaletsch
authors.forename: Sebastian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pilgramm
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bischoff
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kindermann
authors.forename: Isabell
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Sauerbier
authors.forename: Rudolf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Stark
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zentgraf
authors.forename: Jörn
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Munzert
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000503:physiopathology; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010465:Perception; D010551:Personality / Q000502:physiology; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology