Emotion in motion

Smith, Rebecca Anne (2022) Emotion in motion. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

The central question of this thesis concerns how humans can communicate emotional expressivity through whole-body movement. Previous social communication research has focused mainly on the communicative potential of facial expressions, but until we understand the role of movement on a larger, whole-body scale, our appreciation of social signalling will remain incomplete.

To address this gap, in this thesis I present four experiments designed to examine different elements of the communicative potential of whole-body human movement, using dance as a model paradigm. These experiments explore various aspects of social decision-making when observing human movement through the use of several complementary methodologies including; motion capture, forced-choice emotion recognition tasks, slider scale aesthetic evaluation tasks, and semi-structured interviews.

Overall, Emotion in Motion argues for the integrated role of affective and aesthetic processing as a key aspect of evaluating the emotional content of whole-body human movement. In addition, it establishes a role of general and specific kinaesthetic empathy processes, and of previous physical and observational movement experience, in social decision-making for whole-body movement stimuli.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
• Colleges/Schools: College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Psychology & Neuroscience
• Supervisor's Name: Cross, Professor Emily
• Date of Award: 2022
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2022-83443
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 14 Mar 2023 09:47
• Last Modified: 14 Mar 2023 09:48
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.83443
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/83443

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