Colloquium: Katja Schlegel & Marcello Mortillaro Successful communication of emotions: Contributions of the face, voice, and body

TOGETHER WITH THE RTG 2070 COLLOQUIUM

Successful communication of emotions: Contributions of the face,  voice, and body

Katja Schlegel1 & Marcello Mortillaro2
(University of Bern1, University of Geneva2)

Tuesday, 12th June 2018
6pm-8pm

GEMI, room 1.134, Goßlerstr. 14, Göttingen

The accurate expression and recognition of emotions through nonverbal behavior is

critical for effective social interactions. Emotions are typically expressed through multiple
nonverbal modalities (face, voice, and body) but most research focuses on one modality
at a time. The first part of the talk will discuss recent research examining the relative
contribution of face, voice, and body to the effective communication of emotions. Results
show that expressive modalities have a selective ability to convey emotions, although
facial expressions seem to have a predominant role. However, results also suggest that
this may not be the case when differentiating among positive emotions. We will discuss
these findings on the basis of the evolutionary significance of emotion expression.
In the second part of the talk, we will focus on individual differences in people’s ability to
accurately recognize others’ emotions from the face, voice, and body. Emotion
recognition ability (ERA) is considered a basic component of emotional intelligence. The
presentation will cover recent methodological advances in measuring ERA and will
present evidence from correlational and experimental studies showing that higher ERA is
related to better psychosocial outcomes. Finally, we will address the question of whether
ERA can be improved through training.