We disagree with Juslin & Vll's (J&V's) thesis that music-evoked emotions are indistinguishable from other emotions in both their nature and underlying mechanisms and that music just induces some emotions more frequently than others. Empirical evidence suggests that frequency differences reflect the specific nature of music-evoked emotions: aesthetic and reactive rather than utilitarian and proactive. Additional mechanisms and determinants are suggested as predictors of emotions triggered by music.

Research indicates that people value music primarily because of the emotions it evokes. Yet, the notion of musical emotions remains controversial, and researchers have so far been unable to offer a satisfactory account of such emotions. We argue that the study of musical emotions has suffered from a neglect of underlying mechanisms. Specifically, researchers have studied musical emotions without regard to how they were evoked, or have assumed that the emotions must be based on the mechanism for emotion induction, a (...) cognitive appraisal. Here, we present a novel theoretical framework featuring six additional mechanisms through which music listening may induce emotions: (1) brain stem reflexes, (2) evaluative conditioning, (3) emotional contagion, (4) visual imagery, (5) episodic memory, and (6) musical expectancy. We propose that these mechanisms differ regarding such characteristics as their information focus, ontogenetic development, key brain regions, cultural impact, induction speed, degree of volitional influence, modularity, and dependence on musical structure. By synthesizing theory and findings from different domains, we are able to provide the first set of hypotheses that can help researchers to distinguish among the mechanisms. We show that failure to control for the underlying mechanism may lead to inconsistent or non-interpretable findings. Thus, we argue that the new framework may guide future research and help to resolve previous disagreements in the field. We conclude that music evokes emotions through mechanisms that are not unique to music, and that the study of musical emotions could benefit the emotion field as a whole by providing novel paradigms for emotion induction. (shrink)

This article analyzes the role of emotions in social interaction and their effects on social structuration and the emergence of micro-social order. It argues that facial expressions of emotion are key in generating robust patterns of social interaction. First, the article shows that actors' encoding of facial expressions combines hardwired physiological principles on the one hand and socially learned aspects on the other hand, leading to fine-grained and socially differentiated dialects of expression. Second, it is argued that decoding facial expression (...) is contingent upon this combination so that reciprocal attributions of emotional states, situational interpretations, and action tendencies are more effective within rather than across social units. Third, this conjunction affects the conditions for emotional contagion, which is argued to be more effective within social units exhibiting similar encoding and decoding characteristics, and thus aligns emotions and action tendencies in a coherent, yet socially differentiated way. (shrink)

The notion that emotional expressions regulate social life by providing information is gaining popularity. Prior research on the effects of emotional expressions on observers’ inferential processes has focused mostly on inferences regarding the personality traits of the expresser, such as dominance and affiliation. We extend this line of research by exploring the possibility that emotional expressions shape observers’ construal of social situations. Across three vignette studies, an interaction partner's expressions of anger, compared to expressions of happiness or disappointment, led observers (...) to construe hypothetical situations as less cooperative, both in dyads and groups. These effects occurred even when factual information regarding the cooperativeness or competitiveness of the situation was provided, attesting to the power of emotional expressions in shaping the construal of social situations. Results are discussed in relation to appraisal theory, reverse appraisals, emotions as social information theory, and the emergence of cooperation in groups and cultures. (shrink)

While there is an extensive literature on the tendency to mimic emotional expressions in adults, it is unclear how this skill emerges and develops over time. Specifically, it is unclear whether infants mimic discrete emotion-related facial actions, whether their facial displays are moderated by contextual cues and whether infants’ emotional mimicry is constrained by developmental changes in the ability to discriminate emotions. We therefore investigate these questions using Baby-FACS to code infants’ facial displays and eye-movement tracking to examine infants’ looking (...) times at facial expressions. Three-, 7-, and 12-month-old participants were exposed to dynamic facial expressions of a virtual model which either looked at the infant or had an averted gaze. Infants did not match emotion-specific facial actions shown by the model, but they produced valence-congruent facial responses to the distinct expressions. Furthermore, only the 7- and 12-month-olds displayed negative responses to the model’s negative expressions and they looked more at areas of the face recruiting facial actions involved in specific expressions. Our results suggest that valence-congruent expressions emerge in infancy during a period where the decoding of facial expressions becomes increasingly sensitive to the social signal value of emotions. (shrink)

Eye contact is an essential element of human interaction and direct eye gaze has been shown to have effects on a range of attentional and cognitive processes. Specifically, direct eye contact evokes a positive affective reaction. As such, it has been proposed that obstructed eye contact reduces emotional mimicry. So far, emotional mimicry research has used averted-gaze faces or unnaturally covered eyes to analyze the effect of eye contact on emotional mimicry. However, averted gaze can also signal disinterest/ disengagement and (...) censor bars obscure eye-adjacent areas as well and hence impede emotion recognition. In the present study, we used a more ecological valid approach by showing photos of actors who expressed either happiness, sadness, anger, or disgust while either wearing mirroring sunglasses that obstruct eye contact or clear glasses. The glasses covered only the direct eye region but not the brows, nose ridge, and cheeks. Our results confirm that participants were equally accurate in recognizing the emotions of their counterparts in both conditions. Further, in line with our hypotheses, participants felt closer to the targets and mimicked affiliative emotions more intensely when their counterparts wore glasses instead of sunglasses. For antagonistic emotions, we found the opposite pattern: Disgust mimicry, which was interpreted as an affective reaction rather than genuine mimicry, could be only found in the sunglasses condition. It may be that obstructed eye contact increased the negative impression of disgusted facial expressions and hence the negative feelings disgust faces evoked. The present study provides further evidence for the notion that eye contact is an important prerequisite for emotional mimicry and hence for smooth and satisfying social interactions. (shrink)

Facial electromyography (EMG) was used to investigate patterns of facial mimicry in response to partial facial expressions in two contexts that differ in how naturalistic and socially significant the faces are. Experiment 1 presented participants with either the upper- or lower-half of facial expressions and used a forced-choice emotion categorisation task. This task emphasises cognition at the expense of ecological and social validity. Experiment 2 presented whole heads and expressions were occluded by clothing. Additionally, the emotion recognition task is more (...) open-ended. This context has greater social validity. We found mimicry in both experiments, however mimicry differed in terms of which emotions were mimicked and the extent to which the mimicry involved muscle sites that were not observed. In the more cognitive context, there was relatively more motor matching (i.e. mimicking only what was seen). In the more socially valid context, participants were less likely to mimic only what they saw – and instead mimicked what they knew. Additionally, participants mimicked anger in the cognitive context but not the social context. These findings suggest that mimicry involves multiple mechanisms and that the more social the context, the more likely it is to reflect a mechanism of social regulation. (shrink)

We examined social facilitation and emotional convergence in amusement, sadness, and fear in dynamic interactions. Dyads of friends or strangers jointly watched emotion-eliciting films while they either could or could not communicate nonverbally. We assessed three components of each emotion (expressions, appraisals, and feelings), as well as attention to and social motives toward the co-participant. In Study 1, participants interacted through a mute videoconference. In Study 2, they sat next to each other and either were or were not separated by (...) a partition. Results revealed that facilitation and convergence are not uniform across different emotions and emotion components. Particularly strong supporting patterns emerged for the facilitation of and convergence in smiling. When direct interaction was possible (Study 2), friends showed a general tendency for strong convergence, with the exception of fear-related appraisals. This suggests that underlying processes of emotional contagion and social appraisal are differentially relevant for different emotions. (shrink)

Since the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon presidential debates, interest in the impact of televised debates on political campaigns has grown steadily among scholars of argumentation and rhetorical communication. In addition to communicating policy positions of a candidate, televised debates provide the voting public one of the few opportunities to build or solidify impressions of candidates based on a spontaneous social performance in which candidates meet face-to-face to discuss their differences. The strategies candidates use to communicate their policies and their desired image during (...) a debate can influence the direction of public opinion toward them. We claim in this essay that arguments candidates make nonverbally in televised debates are significant in creating and sustaining their image as presidential candidates. (shrink)