Body of Knowledge

doi:10.1017/9781009342919.014

Chapter 10 - Body of Knowledge

The Emerging Science of Emotional Body Expressions

from Section III - Emotion Perception and Elicitation

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2025

Maya Lecker and

Hillel Aviezer

Edited by

Jorge Armony and

Patrik Vuilleumier

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Jorge Armony: Affiliation:
McGill University, Montréal
Patrik Vuilleumier: Affiliation:
University of Geneva

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Summary

When thinking about emotional expressions, most would probably envision facial expressions (e.g., smiling, scowling) or vocalizations (e.g., crying, laughter). Here we focus on the emotional postures and movements of the body – an important, but fairly understudied, signal for emotion perception. During emotional episodes, humans often position and move their bodies in consistent ways that may (or may not) signal their underlying feelings and future actions. We briefly review the historical antecedents of this literature, as well as current knowledge on the neural processing, developmental trajectory, and cultural differences in the emotional perception of body language. We continue by examining the role of the body as a contextualizing agent for disambiguating facial expressions, as well as their inverse relationship – from faces to bodies. Future directions and speculations about how this emerging field may evolve are discussed.

Keywords

Gesture posture body language development culture context

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Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Handbook of Human Affective Neuroscience , pp. 207 - 218

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009342919.014 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2025

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