title: Contributions of facial expressions and body language to the rapid perception of dynamic emotions.
abstract: Correctly perceiving emotions in others is a crucial part of social interactions. We constructed a set of dynamic stimuli to determine the relative contributions of the face and body to the accurate perception of basic emotions. We also manipulated the length of these dynamic stimuli in order to explore how much information is needed to identify emotions. The findings suggest that even a short exposure time of 250 milliseconds provided enough information to correctly identify an emotion above the chance level. Furthermore, we found that recognition patterns from the face alone and the body alone differed as a function of emotion. These findings highlight the role of the body in emotion perception and suggest an advantage for angry bodies, which, in contrast to all other emotions, were comparable to the recognition rates from the face and may be advantageous for perceiving imminent threat from a distance.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Princeton University , Princeton , NJ , USA.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Martinez
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Princeton University , Princeton , NJ , USA.
authors.forename: Virginia B
authors.initials: VB
authors.lastname: Falvello
authors.affiliation: b Department of Psychology , Hebrew University , Jerusalem , Israel.
authors.forename: Hillel
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Aviezer
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Princeton University , Princeton , NJ , USA.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Todorov
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007697:Kinesics; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D012938:Social Perception; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Body perception; Emotion; Face perception; Perception