An official website of the United States government
Displaying emotional states is an important part of nonverbal communication that can facilitate successful interactions. Facial expressions have been studied for their emotional expression, but this work looks at the capacity of body movements to convey different emotions. This work first generates a large set of nonverbal behaviors with a variety of torso and arm properties on a humanoid robot, Quori. Participants in a user study evaluated how much each movement displayed each of eight different emotions. Results indicate that specific movement properties are associated with particular emotions; such as leaning backward and arms held high displaying surprise and leaning forward displaying sadness. Understanding the emotions associated with certain movements can allow for the design of more appropriate behaviors during interactions with humans and could improve people’s perception of the robot.
more »
« less
The emotional antecedents of solidarity in social media crowds
This study examines the organizational dynamics of social media crowds, in particular, the influence of a crowd’s emotional expression on its solidarity. To identify the relationship between emotions expressed and solidarity, marked by sustained participation in the crowd, the study uses tweets from a unique population of crowds—those tweeting about ongoing National Football League games. Observing this population permits the use of game results as quasi-random treatments on crowds, helping to reduce confounding factors. Results indicate that participation in these crowds is self-sustaining in the medium term (1 week) and can be stimulated or suppressed by emotional expression in a short term (1 hour), depending on the discrete emotion expressed. In particular, anger encourages participation while sadness discourages it. Positive emotions and anxiety have a more nuanced relationship with participation.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1634702
- PAR ID:
- 10545127
- Publisher / Repository:
- SAGE Publications
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- New Media & Society
- Volume:
- 20
- Issue:
- 10
- ISSN:
- 1461-4448
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 3700-3719
- Size(s):
- p. 3700-3719
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
How do people go about reading a room or taking the temperature of a crowd? When people catch a brief glimpse of an array of faces, they can focus their attention on only some of the faces. We propose that perceivers preferentially attend to faces exhibiting strong emotions and that this generates a crowd-emotion-amplification effect—estimating a crowd’s average emotional response as more extreme than it actually is. Study 1 ( N = 50) documented the crowd-emotion-amplification effect. Study 2 ( N = 50) replicated the effect even when we increased exposure time. Study 3 ( N = 50) used eye tracking to show that attentional bias to emotional faces drives amplification. These findings have important implications for many domains in which individuals must make snap judgments regarding a crowd’s emotionality, from public speaking to controlling crowds.more » « less
-
The interplay between emotion and reason is of interest to scholars of deliberative democracy, yet it has been little analysed. Examining a 2010 Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR) in Oregon, USA, we find (1) that the participation of chief petitioners, advocates and witnesses is conducive to the expression of emotions and (2) that, aided by moderators, panellists remain focused on clarifying key points and writing their Citizens’ Statement. We conclude that the competitive–collaborative structure of the CIR offers opportunities for emotional expression and reasoned deliberation while productively combining these important forms of discourse.more » « less
-
Science Education has transitioned to science proficiency-- students are to gain the ability to engage in sense making about the natural world (National Research Council [NRC, 2012])--learning to “figure things out” (Passmore, 2014). One emerging area of focus is the emotional work students participate in during science sense making. There is growing recognition that these emotions are not just unnecessary by-products of scientific work, but rather they are part-and-parcel of doing science, as these emotions are part of what “instigates and stabilizes disciplinary engagement” in scientific pursuits (Jaber & Hammer, 2016b, p. 189). The research question that guided this study is: What is the teacher's role in reframing moments of epistemic vexation, so students experience productive meta-affect in the science classroom? After reviewing video footage and student and teacher interviews, three themes emerged: (1) Without reframing from the teacher during moments of epistemic vexation, students disengage from sense-making, (2) Productive meta-affect is more likely to occur when students understand why the teacher allows for failure to connect ideas or understand scientific concepts, and (3) When the teacher does not reframe moments of epistemic vexation, students build solidarity and reach out to each other for emotional support in developing productive meta-affect.more » « less
-
Latinx students embodying justice‐centered science: Agency through imagining via the performing artsChildren are often denied science education that engages their emotions and multiple identities. This study focused on ways in which embodied arts‐based experiences offer opportunities for such engagement in pedagogical efforts associated with justice‐centered science. The conceptual framework that informed the study considers the body as a site of learning, embraces social justice in science education and engages with the dialectical relationship between various structures and children's agency, and frames the transdisciplinarity of imagination. The instrumental case study centered on a fifth‐grade class of Latinx students in an urban public school, as they grappled with lead contamination and peoples' rights to clean water through an embodied, arts‐based pedagogy in their science class. Analysis of video clips, student work, and other artifacts pointed to three findings on how children engaged with justice‐centered science learning via arts‐based embodied activities. Through perspective‐taking in the dramatizing, children engaged with science ideas intertwined with sociopolitical understandings. Through centering emotions that drama afforded, children experienced empathy and solidarity with others affected by environmental injustices. Through imagined and enacted participation in struggles that the embodiments necessitated, children engaged in actions to resist injustices. These findings suggest that exploring children's arts‐based embodied meaning making in science is a robust area of inquiry. Furthermore, the findings compel researchers and practitioners to consider emotions in performing arts, and how they can deepen engagement in, and exploration of, justice‐centered science. Recommendations emerged for practitioners poised to explore justice‐centered science with children through the arts.more » « less
