Body Language Is Read Quickly And Subconsciously, Study
Christopher Philip
Recent research has found that people are influenced by emotional faces even when they are flashed so quickly that they can not be consciously perceived. In line with this, current research led by Bernard Stienen University, Tilburg, The Netherlands, has found evidence that bodies are also processed accurately outside of conscious visual awareness and are decoded properly with respect to emotional voices.
Experiment #1
Illustration of an example trial and example stimuli (experiment 1). An example trial (left), an example of an angry and happy bodily posture (upper right), the mask (below right). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0025517.g001
In the first experiment subjects were presented emotional voices, which they were told to ignore, and then presented with congruent and incongruent emotional body expressions of anger or happiness at such a fast rate that they were impossible to actually view consciously.
The subjects were then asked which of the two images they were presented, and if they were sure of their assessment.
The results found that indeed, the participants were able to detect the emotional expressions of the bodies without actually consciously viewing them, and were also able to ignore the emotional vocal expression.
Experiment #2
Illustration of an example trial and example stimuli (experiment 2). An example of a trial of experiment 2 (left), an example of a fearful bodily expression and a neutral action (upper right) and the mask (below right). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0025517.g003
In the second study, participants were shown 8 photos of four male actors expressing fear or of themselves combing their hair. These were presented outside the conscious visual awareness of the participants. They were also presented with a phrase “with the plane” edited step-wise (7 steps between) fearful and happy.
The participants were instructed to categorize the emotion in the voice clip as fearful or happy.
The results showed that when fearful bodily expressions and neutral actions were presented outside the visual awareness (subconsciously perceivable), they still influenced the interpretation of the spoken words.
Discussing The Findings
The researchers conclude that emotional voices influence emotional body postures independently of the visual awareness.
The second experiment shows that bodily postures presented outside the visual awareness still influence the emotion of the voice.
The take-away is that emotional body expressions are detectable even when they are not consciously seen suggesting that they are detected quickly. Also, emotional sounds and emotional body postures can affect one another independently and regardless of visual awareness. In other words, body language is detected quickly and an emotional voice influences our perceptions of body language.
Image Credit: Moazzam Brohi
Resources
Stienen, Bernard M. C.; Akihiro Tanaka and Beatrice de Gelder. Emotional Voice and Emotional Body Postures Influence Each Other Independently of Visual Awareness. PLoS ONE. 2019. 6(10): e25517. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0025517.