TY - JOUR

T1 - I feel your fear: shared touch between faces facilitates recognition of fearful facial expressions

AU - Maister, Lara

AU - Tsiakkas, Eleni

AU - Tsakiris, Manos

N1 - PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

PY - 2013/2

Y1 - 2013/2

N2 - Embodied simulation accounts of emotion recognition claim that we vicariously activate somatosensory representations to simulate, and eventually understand, how others feel. Interestingly, mirror-touch synesthetes, who experience touch when observing others being touched, show both enhanced somatosensory simulation and superior recognition of emotional facial expressions. We employed synchronous visuotactile stimulation to experimentally induce a similar experience of "mirror touch" in nonsynesthetic participants. Seeing someone else's face being touched at the same time as one's own face results in the "enfacement illusion," which has been previously shown to blur self-other boundaries. We demonstrate that the enfacement illusion also facilitates emotion recognition, and, importantly, this facilitatory effect is specific to fearful facial expressions. Shared synchronous multisensory experiences may experimentally facilitate somatosensory simulation mechanisms involved in the recognition of fearful emotional expressions.

AB - Embodied simulation accounts of emotion recognition claim that we vicariously activate somatosensory representations to simulate, and eventually understand, how others feel. Interestingly, mirror-touch synesthetes, who experience touch when observing others being touched, show both enhanced somatosensory simulation and superior recognition of emotional facial expressions. We employed synchronous visuotactile stimulation to experimentally induce a similar experience of "mirror touch" in nonsynesthetic participants. Seeing someone else's face being touched at the same time as one's own face results in the "enfacement illusion," which has been previously shown to blur self-other boundaries. We demonstrate that the enfacement illusion also facilitates emotion recognition, and, importantly, this facilitatory effect is specific to fearful facial expressions. Shared synchronous multisensory experiences may experimentally facilitate somatosensory simulation mechanisms involved in the recognition of fearful emotional expressions.

KW - Adult

KW - Face

KW - Facial Expression

KW - Fear/physiology

KW - Female

KW - Humans

KW - Illusions/physiology

KW - Neuropsychological Tests

KW - Recognition, Psychology/physiology

KW - Social Perception

KW - Touch Perception/physiology

KW - Visual Perception/physiology

KW - Young Adult

U2 - 10.1037/a0030884

DO - 10.1037/a0030884

M3 - Article

C2 - 23356565

VL - 13

SP - 7

EP - 13

JO - Emotion

JF - Emotion

SN - 1528-3542

IS - 1

ER -