Halberstadt, J., Winkielman, P., Niedenthal, P. M., & Dalle, N. (2009).
Emotional conception: How embodied
emotion concepts guide perception and facial action. Psychological
Science, 20, 1254-1261.
This study assessed embodied simulation
via electromyography (EMG) as participants first encoded emotionally ambiguous
faces with emotion concepts (i.e., ‘‘angry,’’ ‘‘happy’’) and later passively
viewed the faces without the concepts. Memory for the faces was also measured.
At initial encoding, participants displayed more smiling-related EMG activity
in response to faces paired with ‘‘happy’’ than in response to faces paired
with ‘‘angry.’’ Later, in the absence of concepts, participants remembered
happiness-encoded faces as happier than anger-encoded faces. Further, during
passive re-exposure to the ambiguous faces, participants’ EMG indicated
spontaneous emotion-specific mimicry, which in turn predicted memory bias. No
specific EMG activity was observed when participants encoded or viewed faces
with non-emotion-related valenced concepts, or when participants encoded or
viewed Chinese ideographs. From an embodiment perspective, emotion simulation
is a measure of what is currently perceived. Thus, these findings provide
evidence of genuine concept-driven changes in emotion perception. More
generally, the findings highlight embodiment’s role in the representation and
processing of emotional information.