From ancient times up to the present, numerous philosophers and scientists have focused on the complex relationship between mind and matter. For instance, the question of whether body and mind should either be considered as independent or interacting entities was famously addressed by René Descartes in the 17th century. According to his dualistic approach, minds and bodies are radically different kinds of substances that cannot causally interact (Vieillard-Baron, 1991). However, over time, various philosophical perspectives rejecting the body-mind dichotomy have been developed. These approaches, suggesting a close link between bodily and mental processes, significantly influence today’s sciences, particularly in the areas of psychology and neuroscience.
In line with this perspective, researchers currently agree on the idea that bodily responding and its perception play a key role in human’s emotional experience and behavior. With regard to this, particular emphasis should be placed on William James’s famous “theory of emotion” in which he defines an emotion as the consequence of the perception of bodily changes (James, 1884). Concretely, he states that an external, exciting stimulus leads to a physiological reaction whose interpretation in turn leads to a given emotion. In other terms, we do not tremble because we are afraid, but we are afraid because we tremble (James, 1884). Following models, especially Antonio Damasio’s “somatic marker hypothesis,” extended existing knowledge by highlighting the close relationship between physiological, emotional and cognitive processes. Damasio states that physiological changes in response to different stimuli are relayed to the brain where they are transformed into metarepresentations of the bodily state constituting an emotional feeling (Damasio, 1994). Together with their associated past outcomes, these emotional feelings affect cognition and behavior, namely, by guiding decision-making (Damasio, 1994). While the above-mentioned theories clarify the interactions between bodily states, emotional experiences and cognitive processing, it remained largely unclear whether the acquisition of knowledge about emotion and the processing of emotional information might also result from bodily changes.
First answers to this question have been provided by a series of recent accounts, known as “theories of embodied (or grounded) cognition” (e.g., Barsalou, 1999, 2008; Niedenthal, Winkielman, Mondillon, & Vermeulen, 2009). Initially, theories of embodied cognition allowed for highlighting the involvement of modality specific systems (e.g., perception, action, interospection) in higher cognitive processes, such as memory, language or judgments (Vermeulen, Mermillod, Godefroid, & Corneille, 2009). Concretely, the latter suggests that conceptual processing requires partial “as if” reactivation of the sensory-motor systems that are used during interactions with the real world (Barsalou, 1999, 2008; van Dantzig, Pecher, Zeelenberg, & Barsalou, 2008). That is, thinking about the concept of “chair” involves simulations of sitting on a chair in visual, motor and even affective systems.
Of particular interest, the embodied cognition approach has also been applied to the area of emotions. In this view, knowledge about an emotion concept is not reducible to an abstract description but involves the bodily simulation of experienced emotional states relevant to the concept (Niedenthal, 2007; Niedenthal et al., 2009). Even if these simulations can be unconscious and are not as marked as the original emotional state, they provide enough information to facilitate the access to the content of emotion knowledge. In line with Damasio’s somatic marker hypothesis, it can thus be argued that the initial perception of an emotional stimulus leads to bodily responses that are partially recorded and stored in the brain. Later, when cognitive processes require information about this emotional stimulus, the associated pattern of neural states is partially reactivated, stressing the link between modality-specific and conceptual systems (Niedenthal et al., 2009).
Over the past years, a significant number of empirical studies provided support for the embodied simulation account of emotion knowledge. In this chapter, we will review important research findings demonstrating the reciprocal link between bodily states of emotion (e.g., somatic responses) and the processing of emotional information. In fact, parts of the studies presented here, examined the relation between motor and conceptual systems, whereas others investigated the role of facial muscle feedback in this context. Moreover, we will have a closer look on recent findings demonstrating that the processing of emotion concepts is not only affected by peripheral bodily activations (e.g., posture, muscles) but also, more broadly, by physiological modifications, such as heart rate increase or decrease.
Next, we will present findings from psychopathology linking reductions of body and brain responses to difficulties in emotional responding and social interactions. Finally, we will discuss possible intervention procedures that could allow improving embodied emotional responses.
Amongst the numerous studies that are consistent with the embodied emotion framework, several provide evidence for compatibilities between the motor and conceptual systems. Indeed, early findings already suggest the influence of overt behavior on the processing of affective material. For instance, Förster and Strack (1996) had participants memorize positive and negative adjectives while performing either vertical or horizontal head movements, which are naturally associated with agreement and disagreement. Findings indicated that participants who nod during the encoding phase were more likely to recognize positive adjectives, whereas those who shook their heads were more likely to recognize negative adjectives. Memory of valenced words seems thus to be facilitated by a congruent motor action at the time of learning. Similarly, it has been shown that executed and perceived movements of approach or avoidance influence the categorization of emotional stimuli. Concretely, positive words were categorized more quickly than negative words when flexing the arm, and negative words were categorized more quickly than positive words when extending the arm (Neumann & Strack, 2000). The same results were observed when participants were provided with the impression that they were moving either towards (approach) or away from the computer screen (avoidance) (Chen & Bargh, 1999; Rotteveel & Phaf, 2004). Of interest too, Schubert (2004) observed that power-related words (e.g., authority, win) became more accessible for participants who made a fist (a behavior related to body force) than for those who made a neutral gesture (e.g., a “scissor” hand gesture). Word evaluations and power-related cognitions seem thus to be influenced by bodily feedback from making a gesture associated either with bodily approach/avoidance or force (power).
Additionally, it has been shown that the activation of conceptual knowledge about emotion can initiate significant changes in overt behavior. In a study by Oosterwijk and colleagues (2009) participants were invited to generate as many words as possible related to the concepts of pride/success and disappointment/failure. During the word generation task, participants were filmed in order to identify changes in posture height. Results revealed a decrease in posture height along the vertical axis during the generation of disappointment words and no changes during the generation of pride words. This finding indicates that activating the abstract concept of disappointment instantiates a re-enactment of the bodily state associated with actual feelings of disappointment (Oosterwijk et al., 2009). In other terms, accessing conceptual knowledge about an emotion can lead to the spontaneous adoption of a posture typically related to the latter emotion, supporting the idea of an overlap between the mental representations activated while talking or thinking about an emotion and the experience of the emotion itself (Oosterwijk et al., 2009).
Other evidence supporting the embodied emotion framework comes from studies investigating the relationship between facial muscle activation and the cognitive processing of emotional information. For instance, research findings revealed that making judgments about the emotionality of concrete and abstract words leads to emotion specific somatic responses (Niedenthal et al., 2009). Indeed, judgments about concepts typically evoking joy (e.g., sun, cuddle) were accompanied by facial electromyographic (EMG) activity in the zygomaticus and orbicularis oculi muscles, both involved in smiling. Likewise, the processing of concepts eliciting anger (e.g., fight, murderer) caused activation in the corrugator “frowning” muscle, involved in several expressions of negative emotions (Niedenthal et al., 2009). Hence, it appears that spontaneous simulations of emotional reactions (i.e., discrete facial expressions) are used when it comes to processing emotion-related concepts. Interestingly, it has been shown that distinct positive and negative emotional facial response patterns can even be observed when emotional stimuli are presented too quickly to allow conscious perception (e.g., emotional target faces masked by neutral faces; Dimberg & Thunberg, 2000).
Besides, further noteworthy findings come from studies based on the so-called facial feedback hypothesis (FFH), which states that facial expressions can modulate subjective emotional experiences (Adelmann & Zajonc, 1989). For example, Strack and colleagues (1988) observed that manipulations of participants’ facial expressions actively influenced their affective responses. Participants were instructed to hold a pencil either with the lips only (contracting the orbicularis oris muscle and inhibiting muscle activity associated with smiling), the teeth only (contracting the zygomaticus major and facilitating smiling) or the nondominant hand (no effect on facial muscles). Subsequently, they were invited to rate the funniness of several cartoons while holding the pencil in one of the three positions (lips, teeth or hand). Results revealed that the unconscious facilitation of smiling led to more intense humor responses (i.e., significantly higher funniness ratings) in comparison with the inhibiting condition. Convergent findings have been reported by Soussigan (2002) and Duclos and Laird (2001). Furthermore, Ohira and Kurono (1993) observed the influence of facial feedback on social cognitive processes involved in impression formation. In fact, participants were instructed to display or conceal their facial expressions when interacting with a mildly hostile or friendly person. Displaying facial expressions led to impressions congruent with the facial expression, whereas concealing facial reactions had no effect on impression formation (Ohira & Kurono, 1993).
With regard to more cognitive performances, it has been demonstrated that manipulations of facial expressions affect participants’ response patterns in an autobiographical memory task (Schnall & Laird, 2003). Participants who practiced facial expressions associated with happiness recalled more life events with content rated as happy, while participants who previously expressed anger recalled more angry information (Schnall & Laird, 2003). Of interest too, Niedenthal et al. (2009) observed an impairment in the processing of joy- and disgust-related concepts when participants were prevented from producing certain facial movements (by holding a pen laterally between lips and teeth). Consequently, it can be suggested that facial reactions are more than mere side effects of thinking about or being exposed to an emotional stimulus. Support for this assumption comes from a series of recent studies testing the role of emotion simulation in language comprehension. For instance, manipulations of facial expressions influenced the amount of time participants needed to read and judge the valence of a sentence (Havas, Glenberg, & Rinck, 2007). Once again, a pen-holding procedure was used in order to produce or inhibit a smile. Results showed that participants’ response speed for pleasant sentences was faster while they were smiling than while they were prevented from smiling. The reverse effect was found for unpleasant sentences, indicating that language comprehension involves mental simulations of sentence content relying on the same neural systems used in literal emotional experiences (Havas et al., 2007). However, it remained unclear whether participants’ voluntary control of their facial expression could provide the basis for the observed interactions. To clarify this issue, the same research group conducted a follow-up study in which subcutaneous injections of botulinum toxin-A (Botox) were used to eliminate voluntary muscle control (Havas et al., 2010). Participants were first time Botox patients receiving injections in the corrugator supercilii muscle used in expressing negative emotions (i.e., frowning). In two sessions (before and two weeks after Botox injection), participants were instructed to read angry, sad and happy sentences and to press a number on the keypad when they finished reading the sentence. Analysis revealed that reading times for angry and sad sentences were significantly longer in the second session (postinjection) than in the first session (preinjection). There was no difference between the two sessions for happy sentences. These results emphasize that peripheral feedback from facial emotional expressions plays a central, functional role in understanding emotional language, thereby backing up facial feedback and embodied emotion theories. Similarly, it has been shown that selective denervation of face muscles (Botox-induced) reduces mimicry of others’ facial expressions and modulates activation in neural areas (Hennenlotter et al., 2009). More precisely, during imitation of angry facial expressions, restricted muscle feedback due to Botox treatments attenuates the activation of the left amygdala and its functional coupling with brain stem centers, which are implicated in autonomic manifestations of emotional states (Hennenlotter et al., 2009). Consequently, it can be suggested that neural activity in central circuits of emotion provide a basis for the social transfer of emotion (i.e., mimicry of others’ facial expressions). Furthermore, it has been shown that the perception of emotional expressions can modulate sensory exposure at an attentional level. It is indeed known that expressing fear enhances sensory input (e.g., larger visual field, faster eye movements, increase in nasal input), whereas the opposite pattern can be observed for disgust expressions (i.e., reduction in sensory exposure; Susskind et al., 2008). By using an attentional blink (AB) paradigm, Vermeulen, Godefroid and Mermillod (2009) found evidence suggesting that these facial expressions produce similar effects at a cognitive (attentional) level. Fear and disgust indeed cause processes of closure and extension in the perceivers’ attentional system that are similar to the sensory processes observed during emotional expression. This observation ties up with the embodied emotion literature suggesting that the processing of others’ emotional facial expressions relies on the same neural structures than the personal experience of emotions (e.g., Gallese, 2003; Niedenthal, 2007; Niedenthal et al., 2005). With regard to their findings, Vermeulen et al. (2009) concluded that perceivers are likely to act on the environment as expressers do to maximize beneficial adaptation. In other terms, when perceiving an expression of fear in another’s face, we automatically behave as if we were actually experiencing fear, which allows us in turn to behave in the most adaptive way. Therefore, embodied emotions not only facilitate the access to emotion knowledge but also support survival by transmission of emotional states from expressers to perceivers.
While the above-mentioned studies provide evidence for the representation of emotion at a peripheral level (e.g., facial muscles, posture), the question of the representation of emotion at an internal level has mainly been examined by focusing on interoceptive awareness. In fact, in their daily lives, humans not only have access to external environmental cues but they also perceive signals from the inner body that provide a sense and feedback of their physical and physiological condition (Pollatos, Kirsch, & Schandry, 2005). This subjective awareness of inner feelings classically refers to the concept of interoceptive awareness (IA), which encompasses sensations pertaining to the physiological condition of the entire body, including muscles, joints, skin, teeth and viscera (Craig, 2004). Studies have shown that higher levels of interoceptive sensitivity are associated with greater subjective and physiological emotional responses (Pollatos et al., 2005). In the same vein, Häfner (2013) observed that interoceptive awareness moderates embodied cognition. Concretely, participants who were particularly sensitive to internal signals showed greater embodiment effects (i.e., embodiment of weight in value judgements) than those who were less sensitive to their internal bodily changes. Of interest too, recent findings revealed that changes in participants’ levels of physiological arousal (i.e., heart rate) significantly influenced the processing of arousal congruent and incongruent emotional words. Participants realized two blocks of an attentional blink (AB) paradigm, once after a short physical exercise session (increased arousal) and once after a relaxation session (reduced arousal) (Kever et al., 2015). During the AB task, two target words (T1 and T2) were presented in close succession in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) of distractor items (Raymond, Shapiro, & Arnell, 1992). The AB effect refers to the reduced ability to report the second of two targets (T2) if it appears 200 to 500 ms after the first to-be-detected target (T1). T1 and T2 were either neutral, high-arousal (e.g., vomit, wealth) or low-arousal words (i.e., distress, flower). Results revealed that increased physiological arousal led to improved reports of high-arousal T2 words, while reduced physiological arousal led to improved reports of low-arousal T2 words. Neutral T2 words remained unaffected by the arousing conditions. These findings emphasize that actual levels of physiological arousal modulate the cognitive access to arousal (in) congruent emotional concepts and suggest a direct grounding of emotion knowledge in our bodily systems of arousal (Kever et al., 2015).
The experimental studies described in the first part of the chapter support the assumption that emotions are bodily represented at a physiological (e.g., facial muscles) and central (e.g., neural activity) level. For instance, preventing physiological embodied representations (e.g., by blocking facial expressions) impairs the processing of emotional information (e.g., reduced recognition of emotional stimuli; Niedenthal et al., 2009). However, although these studies have significantly contributed to a better understanding of the influence of bodily reactions on the processing of emotional information, they mainly focused on healthy populations presenting normal embodied responses. In order to provide additional support for the embodied emotion hypothesis, it seems thus necessary to examine the latter among psychopathological populations that are characterized by emotional processing impairments.
In the following section, we will give an overview of the major studies that have investigated embodied representations of emotion in psychopathological populations.
According to the DSM-IV, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) involves impairments in social functioning and communication, and is characterized by restricted, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behaviors, interests and activities. Moreover, diagnostic criteria for ASD also include impaired emotional processing. Several studies indeed revealed deficits in the processing of others’ affective mental states (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001) and of emotional facial expressions (EFE) among individuals with ASD (for review, see Uljarevic & Hamilton, 2013). Based on previous findings showing that peripheral feedback from EFE plays a central role in understanding emotional stimuli (e.g., Havas et al., 2007; Oberman, Winkielman, & Ramachandran, 2009), and that observing and mimicking EFE similarly activate regions involved in EFE recognition (Carr et al., 2003), several studies examined whether individuals with ASD present EFE mimicry deficits. They revealed impaired spontaneous emotional facial mimicry during passive viewing of EFE (i.e., when the task does not require from participants to recognize EFE) in women with autistic traits (Hermans et al., 2009) and in ASD participants (e.g., Beall et al., 2008; McIntosh et al., 2006). More specifically, relative to controls, individuals with ASD show a significantly lower rate of congruent automatic facial mimicry responses to happy and angry facial expressions (zygomaticus activation to happy faces – corrugator supercilii activation to angry faces) during passive viewing of EFE (McIntosh et al., 2006). In view of these findings, it could be assumed that those with ASD show lower activation of embodied representations of EFE when active processing is not requested (i.e., passive viewing paradigm).
However, of particular interest, when instructed to voluntarily mimic emotional faces, ASD and control groups present similar levels of electromyographic (EMG) activation (McIntosh et al., 2006; Hermans et al., 2009). Furthermore, during an EFE recognition task, Rozga and colleagues (2013) observed similar magnitude and timing of EMG activity in ASD and control groups (i.e., zygomatic responses to happy faces and corrugator responses to fearful faces). These observations thus support that embodied representation of emotions are preserved in individuals with ASD.
Taken together, the above-mentioned findings indicate that individuals with ASD are only able to activate their embodied representations of emotion when the tasks require explicit mimicry or emotional processing (vs. passive viewing) and thus motivational engagement (Mathersul, McDonald, & Rushby, 2013). Therefore, in line with the facial feedback hypothesis (FFH) (Adelmann & Zajonc, 1989), one could argue that despite preserved embodied representations of emotions, individuals with ASD rely to a lesser extent on emotional mimicry when processing EFE, which in turn explains lower EFE recognition accuracy. Nevertheless, although those with ASD might show preserved activation of embodied representations of emotions during motivational engagement (for contradictory results, see Oberman, Winkielman, & Ramachandran 2009), future research is necessary to investigate whether autistic individuals rely on embodied representations of emotions during EFE processing, and whether the latter is associated with EFE recognition accuracy. This is all the more important since autistic individuals’ lower motivation to recognize the EFE of their social partners (and consequently lower mimicking) might lead to poorer social interactions and to difficulties in understanding and/or sharing the partners’ emotional states. It has indeed been shown that mimicking leads the person that is mimicked to experience enhanced feelings of closeness and liking (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999) and the mimicker to share the other’s emotional state and thus to be more empathically connected. Importantly, only one study examined whether ASD and control groups differed in terms of the effect of spontaneous and voluntary mimicking on emotional experience (Stel, van den Heuvel, & Smeets, 2008). The latter revealed that individuals with ASD show impaired feedback from facial mimicking (both spontaneous and voluntary) during emotional sharing. Furthermore, because social interactions and empathic responses are impaired in ASD, future studies should investigate whether ASD, EFE decoding abilities and EMG (mimicking) activation interact and predict social and emotional deficits in individuals with ASD.
In terms of general neural mechanisms involved in facial mimicking and EFE processing, previous research highlighted bidirectional connectivity between regions coding for the representation of upper face (rostral cingulate motor cortex; Ledoux, 2000) and a key structure in the processing of EFEs (amygdala) (Sergerie, Chochol, & Armony, 2008). Additionally, studies have emphasized the role of the right somatosensory cortex in EFE processing (Adolphs et al., 2000; Pitcher et al., 2008), supporting the hypothesis of sensory-motor systems being involved in the processing of emotional material. Regarding these neural mechanisms in ASD, the latter present lower activation in the amygdala and somatosensory cortex during the processing of emotional stimuli (e.g., Baron-Cohen et al., 2000). Moreover, results reveal that individuals with ASD present lower connectivity between ventromedial prefrontal cortex (involved in the representations of the bodily state) and the somatosensory cortex during self-judgment (Lombardo et al., 2009). Therefore one might hypothesize that the lower activation and/or connectivity in these regions may explain autistic individuals’ lower reliance on embodied representations of emotion during EFE processing.
In sum, the impaired emotional sharing and EFE recognition abilities in ASD individuals might be partly accounted for by lower reliance on possibility preserved peripheral embodiment of emotional representations. Further studies should thus investigate whether sponatneous and voluntary emotional facial mimicking in ASD individuals predicts their deficits in EFE recognition. Besides, their respective impacts on social functioning should be examined.
Emotional alterations are main characteristics of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia refers to a personality disorder characterized by behavioral and cognitive deficits (e.g., impaired attention and memory), by delusions, disorganized speech and thought and by emotional impairments (e.g., loss of interest, affective blunting or anhedonia; DSM-IV). Furthermore, individuals suffering from schizophrenia often present social deficits (e.g., Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2007), including impaired EFE decoding (for review, see Edwards, Jackson, & Pattison, 2002) as well as lower spontaneous EFE mimicry (Kring et al., 1999). In respect to mimicry, schizophrenic patients show unusual EMG activation in response to happy faces, leading to facial expressions that cannot be assigned to any specific expression (Wolfs et al., 2006). Of interest too, Stetito and colleagues (2013) investigated the effect of visual and auditory emotional stimuli on EMG activation in schizophrenic and healthy subjects. During this task, dynamic expressions of happiness, sadness or neutral emotions were presented with either congruent (i.e., laugh, cry or neutral) or incongruent auditory stimuli. Participants were instructed to recognize the EFE and to rate the perceived emotional intensity of the stimuli, from very negative to very positive, while EMG activity was recorded. With regard to positive EFE, results showed that schizophrenic and healthy participants differed in terms of zygomaticus activity (related to happy expressions) with schizophrenic patients showing EMG activation that either delayed by more than 1000 ms (after the onset of the EFE) or that was not specific to happy facial expressions. Furthermore, schizophrenic patients with low average EMG activity rated emotional visual images as less positive and less negative. These findings provide evidence that schizophrenia is characterized by impaired mimicry of positive emotions and lower embodied representations of EFE, possibly accounting for their deficits in EFE processing.
In addition to physiological embodied representations of emotions, schizophrenia may also be characterized by reduced central embodied representations of emotions. Indeed, schizophrenic patients present reduced or abnormal activation in regions associated with emotional processing and mimicking during the processing of emotional information (e.g., amygdala and somatosensory cortex, Sugranyes et al., 2011). Moreover, they show reduced gray matter volume in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which positively correlates with their social impairments (Hooker et al., 2011).
Taken together, these studies suggest that schizophrenia is associated with reduced physiological representations of emotions, espcially happiness. In addition to abnormal central embodied representations these impaired representations may also account for the difficulties in EFE decoding and the social deficits that are observed in schizophrenic individuals.
In conclusion, this overview of physiological and central embodied representations of emotions in ASD and schizophrenic patients confirms the importance of facial mimicry in emotional stimuli processing (Adelmann & Zajonc, 1989). More precisely, it suggests that one should not consider EFE processing and emotional mimicry as independent. On the contrary, these abilities should rather be investigated together in order to better understand to what extent body representations of emotion impact cognitive processing in healthy and clinical populations. With respect to psychopathology, the above-mentioned findings suggest that clinical populations present impaired embodied representations of emotions. However, future studies are necessary to investigate whether embodied emotions may account for the social and emotional deficits that characterize these clinical populations.
As previously mentioned, individual differences may influence the capacity to use the body as a support to represent emotions. At the extreme negative side of the continuum, we may find psychopathological states such as autistic spectrum disorder or schizophrenia. But difficulties embodying emotions may already be found in normal populations, for instance, in individuals presenting difficulties identifying emotions (e.g., alexithymia). Consequently, the question arises whether embodiment can possibly be trained or be rehabilitated. In other words, is it possible to practice focusing on ones bodily responses in order to facilitate emotional adaptation?
Recent studies have shown that practicing the detection of microexpression improves not only the detection of emotional expressions (micro or not) among healthy and clinical populations (e.g., schizophrenia), but also communication skills (e.g., Matsumoto & Hwang, 2011). A series of empirical studies used Ekman’s Micro Expression Training Tool (METT) training program (Ekman, Friesen & Hager, 2002), which consists of three training stages. In the first phase, two pictures displaying neutral facial expressions are presented simultaneously. Then, both pictures gradually transform into a specific emotional expression (e.g., anger and disgust). Importantly, the pairs of facial expressions presented show emotions that are commonly confused with each other (anger/disgust, contempt/happy, fear/surprise, fear/sadness). This phase allows participants to become aware of the differences between expressions that are often confounded. In the second phase, a single neutral face that rapidly (15 ms) evolves towards a specific emotional expression and then returns to the original neutral expression is displayed. Participants are instructed to label the EFE and receive feedback on their performance. The METT was, for instance, used by Russel and colleagues (2006) who tested 20 healthy individuals and 20 schizophrenic patients. During the pretest, they observed poorer performances for the schizophrenic compared to the healthy subjects, whereas the posttest revealed no differences between groups. Besides, they showed that the effect was generalizable to a nonverbal emotion-matching task. Indeed, the performance of schizophrenic, but not of healthy subjects, improved following training. Still, few studies have investigated this issue in clinical populations, and further studies should be conducted in order to support the relevance of such training on EFE identification but also on communication and social skills in general.
With respect to the embodied representation of emotions, one could suggest that this challenging training (i.e., important temporal constraints) would lead patients to rely more on embodied representations of emotions. Through this practice, patients may thus strengthen their embodied representations of emotion, which may be beneficial for other types of emotional processing (e.g., nonverbal emotion-matching task). However, future studies seem to be necessary in order to examine whether the effects of METT training also apply to other tasks involving emotional processing and whether METT practice actually leads to a greater use of peripheral embodied representation of emotion (e.g., emotional mimicry during EFE decoding tasks).
Interestingly, there exist practices aiming at developing awareness of sensory and mental events occurring in the present moment. Notably, mindfulness meditation might be another training solution regarding the embodiment of emotional knowledge. Mindfulness (MF) is a state of being characterized by an intentional orientation of attention toward all experiences in the present, as they arise moment by moment, in a nonjudgmental and benevolent attitude (Kabat-Zinn, 2003), applying to all aspects of living (i.e., introspection, interpersonal relationships, sensory perception). In its occidental and scientific use, MF has been conceived as a measurable trait (Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire [FFMQ]; Baer et al., 2006) or a trainable competence through meditative practices (Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy [MBCT]; Segal et al., 2002) and showed multiple benefits on health (Carlson et al., 2007), cognitive abilities (Chiesa et al., 2011) as well as intra-personal emotional competencies (e.g., emotion differentiation) (Hill & Updegraff, 2012). By bringing to consciousness upcoming information from all senses and observing the co-occurring mental activity, MF leads people to be highly aware of their embodied emotional experiences and develops the first person perspective of bodily states (see Hölzel et al., 2011 for a review of neuroscientific studies). Standing at the crossroads of research on MF and embodiment, we could hypothesize that consciously linking associated thoughts and sensations through MF creates or reinforces embodied knowledge. As an example, when a person puts himself/herself in a MF set, thoughts of fear (e.g., anticipating sufferance) will be noticed as well as the related physiological reactivity patterns (e.g., heart beat acceleration, avoiding behavior). These learned somatic markers of emotional experiences might then constitute multiple available cues for emotion differentiation and for the activation of related concepts in memory. Future studies should investigate this potential effect of increased mindful awareness on embodied (emotional) knowledge. Indeed, even though MF training programs show beneficial effects on emotional competences (e.g., emotion regulation; Ortner et al., 2007), still little is known about the mechanisms of action from MF practice to enhanced emotional functioning and embodied responding (e.g., mimicry).
In this chapter, we presented evidence suggesting that thinking about or evaluating emotions leads to spontaneous bodily responses. Whereas previous opponents objected that these bodily reactivations are simply side effects of being exposed to emotional stimuli, recent findings cannot be accounted for by such explanation. For instance, it has been shown that blocking facial responses (i.e., with a pen or by using Botox) prevents or slows down the natural processing of emotional information.
Importantly, a correlation between facial blunting and emotional responding difficulties can be found in people presenting psychopathological traits. For example, alexithymia – the difficulty to identify and express one’s own emotions – seems to present a transdiagnostic deficit in psychopathologies such as autism (Hill et al., 2004) or schizophrenia (Todarello et al., 2005). Supporting the hypothesis of psyche-soma dissociation in individuals showing high levels of alexithymia (Lane et al., 1997), neuroscientific evidence highlights a deficit in interoceptive awareness among same psychopathological disorders (i.e., anterior insula; Bird et al., 2010). Consequently, it might be suggested that the “disconnection or decoupling” between physiological (peripheral and central) and mental (i.e., subjective) states, which has been observed in alexithymic individuals, may explain their difficulties in distinguishing between their subjective feelings and the bodily sensations of emotional arousal, given that this information is hardly detected (i.e., impaired interoceptive awareness). Following Damasio (1999), the feeling of experiencing an emotion – produced by the proto-self – emerges from the detection and mental representation of modifications in our body and their relations to our environment. Hence, it could be argued that in some individuals the access to emotions is hampered by a lack of somatic markers and/or a poor awareness of physiological cues. Based on the embodiment theory, it might be hypothesized that individuals scoring high on alexithymia scales only present poor embodied emotional knowledge (semantic) (Vermeulen et al., 2006).
Finally, we believe that some training, specifically oriented towards facial mimicry or more generally oriented towards the awareness of what is happening at the present time (mindfulness), may help improve emotional embodiment. Overall, such training may increase the richness and the quality of the emotional repertoire.
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