Context Matters When Judging Body Language
Christopher Philip
Cold? Seeking comfort? Context matters when reading body language.
Researchers Mariska Kret and Beatrice de Gelder, University of Tilburg found evidence that people read bodily expressions best when the scenes they appear in are more emotionally similar than when they are emotionally different.
In the study, the researchers placed various bodily expressions in congruent and incongruent context and measured the accuracy with which the participants could discern the emotions expressed by posture.
Experiment #1 – Bodily Expression And Contexts
First, emotional stimulus was created using a total of 38 male and 46 female amateur actors. To make the video, the actors were familiarized with the scenarios depicting fear which was with an aggressive dog and happy scene which was an encounter with a friend.
A total of 869 body stimuli were created including fearful, happy, angry, sad, disgusted and neutral.
These were then shown to 120 participants and evaluated. The images receiving the best overall recognition were used for the following study. In total, 8 fearful body images were correctly recognized at a rate exceeding 91%.
Next, scenes were collected from the Internet representing various features. For example a neutral condition included a soccer field. Scenes were then created including people running away from danger, happy people dancing at a party and so forth. Rates of success for identifying the correct emotion neared 90% in each stimulus scene.
Next subjects were shown various bodily expressions in congruent and incongruent context and measured for their accuracy.
Results showed that bodies, regardless of their emotional expression, were more accurately recognized in congruent context versus incongruent contexts. They were also better recognized in neutral contexts than incongruent contexts. Additionally, body expressions were more quickly recognized in congruent contexts than neutral contexts.
Experiment #2 – Angry and Happy Bodies In Context
In this experiment the procedure was repeated as in the first experiment except that angry rather than fearful bodily expressions were tested against angry (congruent), happy (incongruent) or neutral contexts.
The angry stimulus scenes in this study were recognized at a rate of 88% while the angry bodily expressions were also recognized at a high rate of 92%. These replaced the fearful body images and scenes of the first experiment.
Results showed that bodies were better recognized in congruent rather than incongruent contexts and also better than neutral contexts. Angry bodies in angry contexts were better recognized than in happy contexts or in neutral contexts. Likewise, happy bodies were better recognized in happy contexts than in angry contexts. As in experiment #1 bodies were recognized faster in a congruent versus incongruent context.
Experiment #3 – Blurred Facial Expressions and Emotional Contexts
The procedure was repeated as in experiment #1 except this time the faces were blurred so that participants could not use facial expressions to help discern emotional expressions and the subjects had to rely on bodily expressions alone.
Once again, results showed that body expression was better recognized in congruent contexts than incongruent context.
Experiment #4 – Blurred Faces With Angry and Happy Bodies
In this experiment the researchers used angry instead of fearful stimuli.
The effect was once again replicated showing that emotionally congruent contexts helped subjects accurately read the emotional expressions.
In summary, all four experiments showed that the body expression in the scene influenced how the target body expression was perceived rather than the emotional expression of the face. In other words, the facial expression was not the crucial factor in the congruency effect.
Discussing The Findings
In life, we experience many emotions expressed by others. However, when we see them, they are usually occurring in context, with facial expression and bodily expression that, more or less, match. Therefore, it is not surprising that the accuracy of judgment is boosted as the congruency between the context, facial expression and bodily expressions match. The more expressions match, the more certain one can be about the overall emotions being felt and delivered.
The results of this experiment bear this out. Fearful, angry and happy body expressions were more accurately recognized in congruent social emotional scenes than when they were found in incongruent scenes.
The authors of the study remind us that the actions we see happening in the background prime or trigger emotional categories which help us make quick judgments about what we feel is going on.
The study also confirms that when emotions of the face and body match with the context, judgments are not only more accurate, but also quicky.
However, and by the same logic, when scenes and expressions do not match, difficulties in assessments occur. This is where a deeper understanding of body language serves the reader. Someone who studies facial and bodily expressions can discern emotion more accurately by reading the parts independent of one another but at the same time recognize how they differ. This is something that requires practice.
Image Credit: Hernán Piñera
Resources
Kret, Mariska Esther and Beatrice de Gelder. Social Context Influences Recognition of Bodily Expressions. Exp Brain Res. 2019. 203:169-180. DOI 10.1007/s00221-010-2220-8