Biological Motion and Emotion: Investigating the Impact of Tempo Manipulations

Abstract

Abstract The perception of emotions in human movements can be influenced by several movement features such as fluidity, complexity, and tempo. Slow motion in movies, for instance, have been widely used to evoke emotional responses. However, there has been limited research on how tempo manipulation affects the perceived emotions, by accelerating or decelerating the tempo a movement is presented at. The aim of the current study was to examine how tempo-manipulated point-light displays (PLDs) of human movements, in comparison to their tempo-original counterparts, influence the perceived emotional arousal and valence by altering the underlying movement characteristics. In an online perceptual experiment, we presented tempo-original and tempo-manipulated PLDs at three tempi, with and without synchronized drumbeats. Participants were asked to judge a stimulus based on its emotional arousal, valence, and naturalness. Results suggested that movements with higher fluidity were perceived lower in arousal, while stimuli that were higher in naturalness were perceived more positive in valence. Furthermore, decelerated movements were associated with increased fluidity compared to accelerated or tempo-original ones. Tempo deceleration were associated with lower naturalness compared to tempo-original ones. The findings indicate that tempo manipulation can be identified via kinematic feature change, consequently changing some emotional attributes perceived of movements.