Body language expresses emotions across cultures

We show our emotions using our facial expressions as well as our body language. The way your body shakes with laughter during a comedy routine versus the restrained movements of a heartfelt reunion with a dear friend – both express joy, yet in profoundly different ways.

Understanding these subtly different layers of physical expression was the focus of a recent research project.

The uniqueness of the study was not just its shift from facial expressions to body movements. The researchers also considered the cultural aspects of body language.

How do we account for cultural diversity in body language? What does happiness look like for someone born and raised in Japan?

Charting emotions in motion

Building on previous research that primarily focused on Western populations and simple, repetitive actions, this study takes a significant step forward.

In a collaborative effort, scientists from the Research Institute of Electrical Communication at Tohoku University (Japan) and National Chung Cheng University (Taiwan) joined forces to address these challenges.

The researchers’ quest led them to a motion capture lab where six professional performers expressed a range of emotions by simply moving their bodies.

Notably, the study focused on the emotional expression of Japanese people – a demographic largely overlooked in past studies.

Emotions conveyed through body language

The researchers asked the performers to recall personal emotional experiences that made them feel everything from joy to anger, sadness, surprise, fear, disgust, and contempt.

Their movements captured by high-tech motion capture technology were later transformed into simple, stick figure-like animations.

The team also explored imitation learning. This technique involves a robot learning by mimicking the movements of a human who is performing a task. Despite its effectiveness in stable environments, imitation learning falters in new or unfamiliar situations.

Professor Mitsuhiro Hayashibe of the Graduate School of Engineering at Tohoku University provided a solution to this dilemma.

The researchers merged imitation learning with another approach. Instead of applying deep learning to the Central Pattern Generators (CPGs), they applied it to a reflex neural network that supports the CPGs.

Decoding the body language

The study participants watched the animations and interpreted the expressed emotions. Surprisingly, their accuracy matched those found in earlier studies that used simpler action databases.

Of the various emotions displayed, the participants found anger and fear the easiest to decode, while contempt and disgust were considered challenging.

Dr. Miao Cheng, an assistant professor at Tohoku University, praised the study. He described it as a vital step forward in creating a diverse, Asian-centric dataset to bolster further research on emotional communication.

“We are extremely fortunate to have the support of a local musical company based in Sendai, SCS musical company, to fully support this endeavor from the moment performers were recruited and throughout their performances,” noted Dr. Chia-huei Tseng, an associate professor at Tohoku University.

“Without the professional help provided by Mr. Jun Hirose and Mr. Kazumasa Fujita from SCS musical company, it would have been very difficult to bridge art and science properly in this study.”

The promise of future research

The researchers hope future studies will use this database to provide fresh insights into cultural variations in nonverbal communication. This kind of understanding could prove invaluable in developing tech communication tools that promote cross-cultural understanding.

Industries employing motion capture techniques might also benefit from this research, including those in the fields of gaming, film, animation, and virtual reality.

Additionally, the research paves the way for advances in mental health diagnostics. The way individuals move when experiencing different emotions might offer subtle cues about their psychological state, potentially aiding in early detection of conditions such as anxiety or depression.

By incorporating motion-based emotional assessment into therapeutic practices, psychologists and neuroscientists could gain an additional layer of insight into a patient’s well-being.

Finally, the study highlights the importance of expanding the scope of psychological and neuroscientific research beyond Western perspectives.

Much of the existing literature on body language and emotional expression is based on Western subjects, leading to potential biases in how we interpret emotions globally.

By emphasizing culturally diverse datasets, the study contributes to a more comprehensive and inclusive understanding of human emotion, and paves the way for richer cross-cultural research.

The full study was published in the journal Behavior Research Methods.

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