Spatial relations between hands shape visual perception of emotion

Blythe, Ellen and El Gouraini, Nisrine and Medeg, Vanda and Garrido, L. and Longo, Matthew (2025) Spatial relations between hands shape visual perception of emotion. Emotion , ISSN 1528-3542. (In Press)

Abstract

Body posture provides a rich source of information about the emotional states of other people. Recent research has shown that people can recognise emotions even from isolated images of body parts, especially from hands. In perception of emotion from faces, research has emphasised the importance of relational information about the global spatial relations between different parts of the face. The role of holistic processing in perception of emotion from bodies is unknown. One potential signature of holistic processing in emotional perception of bodies is the finding the recognition of emotions is higher when both hands are shown compared to just one hand. This could indicate that the spatial relationship between the hands carries information about emotions over and above that present in each hand individually. Alternatively, it could reflect the fact that when two hands are present there is simply twice as much total information. This study therefore compared emotion recognition when participants were shown: (1) both hands in their actual configuration, (2) both hands in a distorted configuration, or (3) one hand. Performance was substantially above chance in all conditions, replicating the finding that emotion can be recognised from isolated hand images. Critically, performance was higher when both hands were shown in their actual configuration compared to the other two conditions. These results provide evidence for holistic processing in the perception of emotion from body parts.

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