Integration of emotion from face and body in the human brain

Finn, Elizabeth 2023. Integration of emotion from face and body in the human brain. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

This thesis explores the integration of facial expression and body posture information in the human brain. Previous work has shown that facial expressions are biased by the emotion displayed by an accompanying body posture, and vice versa. However, there has been little investigation into this phenomenon beyond neurotypical adults, and there remains conflicting evidence in the literature regarding the hierarchy of integration of facial expression and body posture information in the human brain. In Chapter 3, I investigated the influence of body posture on facial expression perception across the adult lifespan and found that the influence of body posture increases with age and is linked to a decrease in recognition ability for facial expressions across the lifespan. Additionally, I showed that facial expression also biases the perception of body posture across the adult lifespan, but that the degree of this influence remains stable with age. Chapter 4 compares the influence of body posture on facial expression perception in autistic and non-autistic individuals, finding that reduced facial expression recognition in autistic individuals correlates with a heightened influence of body posture compared with the non-autistic comparison group. This suggests a similar mechanism underpinning integration of facial expression and body posture information in both autistic and non-autistic individuals. In Chapter 5, I used neuroimaging techniques to explore the hierarchy of integration of face and body emotion along the visual processing pathway. I found evidence for integrated face and body emotion representations at multiple sites along the visual processing pathway, including relatively early brain regions. In summary, the work presented in this thesis contributes to a comprehensive understanding of how emotion cues from face and body are integrated in daily life to construct coherent representations during social interactions.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Psychology
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	28 May 2024
Last Modified:	28 May 2024 16:01
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/169218

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