Abstract Conscious emotional processing is characterized by a coordinated set of responses across multiple physiological systems. Although emotional stimuli can evoke certain physiological responses even when they are suppressed from awareness, it is not known whether unconscious emotional responses comprise a similar constellation or are confined to specific systems. To compare physiological responses to emotional stimuli with and without awareness, we measured a range of responses while participants viewed positive, negative and neutral images that were accompanied by noise bursts to elicit startle reflexes. We measured four responses simultaneously – skin conductance and heart rate changes in response to the images themselves; and startle eye-blink and post-auricular reflexes in response to the noise bursts that occurred during image presentation. For half of the participants, the images were masked from awareness using continuous flash suppression. The aware group showed the expected pattern of response across physiological systems: emotional images (regardless of valence) evoked larger skin conductance responses (SCRs) and greater heart rate deceleration than neutral images, negative images enhanced eye-blink reflexes and positive images enhanced post-auricular reflexes. In contrast, we found a striking dissociation between measures for the unaware group: typical modulation of SCRs and post-auricular reflexes, but no modulation of heart rate deceleration or eye-blink reflexes. Our findings suggest that although some physiological systems respond to emotional stimuli presented outside of awareness, conscious emotional processing may be characterized by a broad and coordinated set of responses across systems.
The ability to quickly and accurately recognise emotional states is adaptive for numerous social functions. Although body movements are a potentially crucial cue for inferring emotions, few studies have studied the perception of body movements made in naturalistic emotional states. The current research focuses on the use of body movement information in the perception of fear expressed by targets in a virtual heights paradigm. Across three studies, participants made judgments about the emotional states of others based on motion-capture body movement recordings of those individuals actively engaged in walking a virtual plank at ground-level or 80 stories above a city street. Results indicated that participants were reliably able to differentiate between height and non-height conditions (Studies 1 & 2), were more likely to spontaneously describe target behaviour in the height condition as fearful (Study 2) and their fear estimates were highly calibrated with the fear ratings from the targets (Studies 1-3). Findings show that VR height scenarios can induce fearful behaviour and that people can perceive fear in minimal representations of body movement.
When we become engrossed in novels, films, games, or even our own wandering thoughts, we can feel present in a reality distinct from the real world. Although this subjective sense of presence is, presumably, a ubiquitous aspect of everyday conscious experience, the mechanisms that produce it are not known. Correlational studies conducted in virtual reality have shown that we feel more present when we are afraid, motivating claims that physiological arousal contributes to presence; however, such causal claims have yet to be evaluated. Here, we report two experiments that test the causal role of subjective and physiological components of fear in generating presence. In Study 1, we validated a virtual reality simulation capable of inducing fear. We asked participants to rate their emotions while they walked across a wooden plank that appeared to be suspended high above a city street; at the same time, we recorded heart rate and skin conductance levels. Height exposure increased ratings of both fear and presence, and also increased physiological arousal. Although presence and fear ratings were positively correlated during height exposure, presence and physiological measures were unrelated. In Study 2, we manipulated whether the plank appeared to be at height, or on the ground. Using a mediational approach, we found that the relationship between height exposure and presence on the plank was fully mediated by self-reported fear, and not by physiological arousal. Findings point to the importance of subjective emotional experience in informing the feeling that we are physically situated within a reality.
The ability to quickly and accurately recognise emotional states is adaptive for numerous social functions. Although body movements are a potentially crucial cue for inferring emotions, few studies have studied the perception of body movements made in naturalistic emotional states. The current research focuses on the use of body movement information in the perception of fear expressed by targets in a virtual heights paradigm. Across three studies, participants made judgments about the emotional states of others based on motion-capture body movement recordings of those individuals actively engaged in walking a virtual plank at ground-level or 80 stories above a city street. Results indicated that participants were reliably able to differentiate between height and non-height conditions (Studies 1 & 2), were more likely to spontaneously describe target behaviour in the height condition as fearful (Study 2) and their fear estimates were highly calibrated with the fear ratings from the targets (Studies 1-3). Findings show that VR height scenarios can induce fearful behaviour and that people can perceive fear in minimal representations of body movement.
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