Abstract/Summary

The perception of emotional expressions is affected by our knowledge and experience, and the context in which they are presented. Social interactions are a natural context in which expressions are viewed, yet we are only beginning to understand how they impact our perception. In three online studies, we investigated whether social interaction contexts impact on the perceived valence intensity of emotional whole-body stimuli. We manipulated whether the dyads were presented within a social interaction or not by changing their arrangement (face-to-face, and back-to-back, respectively). Emotionally expressive dyads were presented, where both individuals expressed the same basic emotion (happy-happy, angry-angry, or neutral-neutral), and we measured the perceived intensity of the interactants’ valence. In Experiment 1, participants (N = 68) perceived happy and angry bodies to be more intensely positive and negative, respectively, when presented face-to-face than back-to-back for an unlimited duration. In Experiment 2, we limited the presentation duration to 500ms, and found that participants (N = 65) perceived angry bodies as more intensely negative when presented face-to-face than back-to-back. In Experiment 3, we replaced one of the interactants with an arrow, and manipulated their arrangement. Participants (N = 64) rated the intensity of the bodies similarly irrespective of their arrangement with the arrows. Our findings show that interaction contexts influence the perception of interactants’ valence intensity, and the effects are not driven by attentional cueing. These results have implications for how interactions are perceived, which may inform how we respond when we encounter groups of people in everyday life.