Abstract
People's faces show fear in many different circumstances. However, when people are terrified, as well as showing emotion, they run for cover. When we see a bodily expression of emotion, we immediately know what specific action is associated with a particular emotion, leaving little need for interpretation of the signal, as is the case for facial expressions. Research on emotional body language is rapidly emerging as a new field in cognitive and affective neuroscience. This article reviews how whole-body signals are automatically perceived and understood, and their role in emotional communication and decision-making.
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Acknowledgements
Preparation of this manuscript was partly funded by a grant from The Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) and by the MIND Foundation, the Martinos NMR-MGH Center, Harvard Medical School and Nederland Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO)-Dutch Science Foundation. I am very grateful to my collaborators in the joint studies reviewed here, to J. Van den Stock for assistance with the manuscript and to anonymous reviewers who provided valuable suggestions.
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de Gelder, B. Towards the neurobiology of emotional body language. Nat Rev Neurosci 7, 242–249 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1872
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1872
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