Fear Is Spread by Body Language, Study Says

[Dover]

Fear Is Spread by Body Language, Study Says

Stefan Lovgren
for National Geographic News
November 16, 2004



A menacing body posture can be as threatening as a frightening facial expression, according to new research.
In the past, scientists have said that human emotions are communicated mainly by facial expressions. But a new study suggests that body posture may be as important as the face in communicating emotions such as fear.

The discovery suggests that the immediate response to other people's fear may be more automatic than previously thought.

The study shows that images of fear affect the emotional part of the brain. Since the link between the emotional brain and action is stronger than the link between the visual brain and action, viewing fearful body expressions may automatically prepare the observer to respond to fear.

"When we talk about how humans communicate, we always talk about things like language," said Beatrice de Gelder, the neuroscientist who led the study. "But just like in the animal world, we also communicate through our bodies without our conscious minds being much aware of it."

De Gelder is a professor at both Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts, and Tilburg University in the Netherlands. The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week....cont'd

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/11/1116_041116_fear_posture.html

[NMDemDist2]

1. that makes sense, you can't really see expressions from far away

but can read a whole body attitude from a great distance