Emotions mapped out in the body

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emotions mapped out in the body

 

 

This is what happiness, anger and surprise does to your body

Boffins at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences discovered that your body heats up in different ways depending on what emotions you’re feeling. Just look at this heat map:

 

The brighter the body, the more emotional they’re feeling. So, if you’re angry your head heats up, while feeling blue actually cools down your body.

No matter what culture or part of the world you’re from, you’ll still feel emotions the same way.

Now if only we could harness this to be able to tell when our nearest and dearest were in a bad mood so that we could stay the hell away.

Source: Discover Magazine

 

Finnish researchers have studied how emotions such as happiness, nervousness and anger feel in the body. The results led to a colourful outline of the physical reactions to emotions

 

Feeling green with envy? Or red with anger? Not quite, according to a new study of how our body reacts to various emotions.

The body maps in the above photo gallery are based on 701 study participants, who were asked to describe how they experienced emotions such as happiness, shame, love and depression.

They were shown two silhouettes of bodies alongside emotional words, stories, movies or facial expressions, and were then asked to colour the bodily regions whose activity they felt increasing or decreasing while viewing each stimulus. They were also asked to colour those regions where the body’s reaction was slower and weaker.
This enabled the researchers to map out 14 different emotions.

The results are published in the journal PNAS.

Emotions are the same in Scandinavia as in Taiwan

The researchers, from Aalto University in Finland, used participants from Finland, Sweden and Taiwan to demonstrate that emotions are represented in the somatosensory system as culturally universal categorical somatotopic maps.

The 14 emotions were divided into three groups:

• Six basic emotions
• Seven complex emotions
• One neutral emotion

The maps show the most active reactions to emotions highlighted with yellow and red, while the slow or absent reactions are illustrated with shades of blue.

The researchers hope their findings will help us better understand mood swings, depression and anxiety.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emotions mapped out in the body

 

 

Finnish researchers have studied how emotions such as happiness, nervousness and anger feel in the body. The results led to a colourful outline of the physical reactions to emotions

 

Feeling green with envy? Or red with anger? Not quite, according to a new study of how our body reacts to various emotions.

The body maps in the above photo gallery are based on 701 study participants, who were asked to describe how they experienced emotions such as happiness, shame, love and depression.

They were shown two silhouettes of bodies alongside emotional words, stories, movies or facial expressions, and were then asked to colour the bodily regions whose activity they felt increasing or decreasing while viewing each stimulus. They were also asked to colour those regions where the body’s reaction was slower and weaker.
This enabled the researchers to map out 14 different emotions.

The results are published in the journal PNAS.

Emotions are the same in Scandinavia as in Taiwan

The researchers, from Aalto University in Finland, used participants from Finland, Sweden and Taiwan to demonstrate that emotions are represented in the somatosensory system as culturally universal categorical somatotopic maps.

The 14 emotions were divided into three groups:

• Six basic emotions
• Seven complex emotions
• One neutral emotion

The maps show the most active reactions to emotions highlighted with yellow and red, while the slow or absent reactions are illustrated with shades of blue.

The researchers hope their findings will help us better understand mood swings, depression and anxiety.

 

January 12, 2014 - 06:36

 

http://sciencenordic.com/emotions-mapped-out-body

 

By: Jeppe Wojcik