E-motions
In: Art & PerceptionSearch for other papers by Rossana Actis-Grosso in
Current site
Google Scholar
Search for other papers by Daniele Zavagno in
Current site
Google Scholar
An experiment is presented, aimed at preliminary testing the hypothesis according to which facial expressions related to specific emotions, such as anger, fear, and joy, incorporate a sense of dynamicity and are used to enhance the representation of motion in static artworks. Since a growing body of evidence shows that motion is one of the core components of emotion, and the representation of motion in art is often achieved by portraying unstable poses, we hypothesize that the visually more dynamic emotions are those with ‘unstable’ facial expressions, i.e., expressions that imply muscular tensions that cannot be held for long (e.g., rage, grief, amazement: E-motions) whereas static emotions are those which can last and even represent a constant facial feature in some people. To test this hypothesis we chose eleven static artworks from which we derived twelve human figures that convey different emotions in different proportions. Images were manipulated to produce two sets of stimuli: headless bodies (Set 1) and bodiless heads (Set 2). Participants were asked to rate perceived dynamicity of stimuli from Set 1 on a 7-point Likert scale (Session 1) and to rate each stimulus from Set 2 for joy, sadness, surprise, disgust, anger, fear, serenity, puzzlement and dynamicity (i.e., eight emotions and dynamicity). As expected, we found that some facial emotions (i.e., disgust, anger and fear) are positively related to the dynamicity attributed to the artworks: those emotions are the more sudden ones and thus the more ‘unstable’. We also found that serenity is negatively related to dynamicity. Contrary to our expectations, we found instead that joy is statistically different from dynamicity, a result that calls for further investigation.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Actis-Grosso R., Zavagno D. (2008). The representation of time course events in visual arts and the development of the concept of time in children: A preliminary study, Spat. Vis. 21, 315–336.
-
Arnheim R. (1969). Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, USA.
-
Atkinson A. P., Dittrich W. H., Gemmell A. J., Young A. W. (2004). Emotion perception from dynamic and static body expressions in point-light and full-light displays, Perception 33, 717–746.
-
Bassili J. N. (1978). Facial motion in the perception of faces and of emotional expressions, J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 4, 373–379.
-
Bassili J. N. (1979). Emotion recognition: The role of facial movement and the relative importance of upper and lower areas of the face, J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 37, 2049–2058.
-
Bould E., Morris N. (2008). Role of motion signals in recognizing subtle facial expressions of emotion, Br. J. Psychol. 99, 167–189.
-
Brownlow S., Dixon A. R., Egbert C. A., Radcliffe R. D. (1997). Perception of movement and dancer characteristics from point-light displays of dance, Psychol. Rec. 47, 411–421.
-
Bruce V., Valentine T. (1988). When a nod’s as good as a wink: The role of dynamic information in facial recognition, in: Practical Aspects of Memory: Current Research and Issues, Vol. 1, Gruneberg M. M., Morris P. E., Sykes R. N. (Eds), pp. 169–174. Wiley, Chichester, UK.
-
Chafi A., Schiaratura L., Rusinek S. (2012). Three patterns of motion which change the perception of emotional faces, Psychology 3, 82–89.
-
Clarke T. J., Bradshaw M. F., Field D. T., Hampson S. E., Rose D. (2005). The perception of emotion from body movement in point-light displays of interpersonal dialogue, Perception 34, 1171–1180.
-
Dittrich W. H., Troscianko T., Lea S., Morgan D. (1996). Perception of emotion from dynamic point-light displays represented in dance, Perception 25, 727–738.
-
Ekman P., Friesen W. V. (1971). Constants across cultures in the face and emotion, J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 17, 124–129.
-
Fiorentini C., Viviani P. (2011). Is there a dynamic advantage for facial expressions? J. Vis. 11, 1–15.
-
Freyd J. (1983). The mental representation of movement when static stimuli are viewed, Percept. Psychophys. 33, 575–581.
-
Izard C. E. (2009). Emotion theory and research: Highlights, unanswered questions, and emerging issues, Annu. Rev. Psychol. 60, 1–25.
-
Jack R., Garrod O. G. B., Yu G., Caldara R., Schyns P. (2012). Facial expressions of emotion are not culturally universal, Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 109, 127–132.
-
Johansson G. (1973). Visual perception of biological motion and a model for its analysis, Percept. Psychophys. 14, 201–211.
-
Johansson G. (1977). Studies of perception of locomotion, Perception 6, 365–376.
-
Kissin B. (1986). Conscious and Unconscious Programs in the Brain. Plenum Press, New York, NY, USA.
-
Knight B., Johnston A. (1997). The role of movement in face recognition, Vis. Cogn. 4, 265–273.
-
Kourtzi Z., Kanwisher N. (2000). Activation in human MT/MST by static images with implied motion, J. Cogn. Neurosci. 12, 48–55.
-
Massironi M. (2002). The Psychology of Graphics Images. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ, USA.
-
Plutchik R. (1980). A general psychoevolutionary theory of emotion, in: Emotion: Theory, Research, and Experience, Vol. 1. Theories of Emotion, Plutchik R., Kellerman H. (Eds), pp. 3–33. Academic Press, New York, NY, USA.
-
Podevin G. (2009). Influence des Mouvements Elémentairese sur les processus cognitifs emotionnels. Thèse de Doctorat, Université de Lille Nord de France UDL3, France.
-
Pollick F. E., Paterson H., Bruderlin A., Sanford A. J. (2001). Perceiving affect from arm movement, Cognition 82, B51–B61.
-
Russell J. (1994). Is there universal recognition of emotion from facial expression? A review of the cross-cultural studies, Psychol. Bull. 115, 102–141.
-
Walk R. D., Homan C. P. (1984). Emotion and dance in dynamic light displays, Bull. Psychonom. Soc. 22, 437–440.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 312 | 65 | 1 |
| Full Text Views | 129 | 2 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 19 | 7 | 0 |
E-motions
In: Art & PerceptionSearch for other papers by Rossana Actis-Grosso in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Search for other papers by Daniele Zavagno in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
An experiment is presented, aimed at preliminary testing the hypothesis according to which facial expressions related to specific emotions, such as anger, fear, and joy, incorporate a sense of dynamicity and are used to enhance the representation of motion in static artworks. Since a growing body of evidence shows that motion is one of the core components of emotion, and the representation of motion in art is often achieved by portraying unstable poses, we hypothesize that the visually more dynamic emotions are those with ‘unstable’ facial expressions, i.e., expressions that imply muscular tensions that cannot be held for long (e.g., rage, grief, amazement: E-motions) whereas static emotions are those which can last and even represent a constant facial feature in some people. To test this hypothesis we chose eleven static artworks from which we derived twelve human figures that convey different emotions in different proportions. Images were manipulated to produce two sets of stimuli: headless bodies (Set 1) and bodiless heads (Set 2). Participants were asked to rate perceived dynamicity of stimuli from Set 1 on a 7-point Likert scale (Session 1) and to rate each stimulus from Set 2 for joy, sadness, surprise, disgust, anger, fear, serenity, puzzlement and dynamicity (i.e., eight emotions and dynamicity). As expected, we found that some facial emotions (i.e., disgust, anger and fear) are positively related to the dynamicity attributed to the artworks: those emotions are the more sudden ones and thus the more ‘unstable’. We also found that serenity is negatively related to dynamicity. Contrary to our expectations, we found instead that joy is statistically different from dynamicity, a result that calls for further investigation.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 312 | 65 | 1 |
| Full Text Views | 129 | 2 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 19 | 7 | 0 |