 A recent paper by Goldenberg, Weisz, Sweeny, Cikara, and Gross (2021) suggests that we might be not so good at estimating the emotion in crowds. Their research suggests that we are focusing mainly on the expressions with the highest intensity in a crowd and this might lead to overestimating how a crowd might react.
This is quite interesting - and particularly at a time when, at the time of writing, we might frequently be confronted with a situation where we are talking, while looking at grids of faces looking back at us in a Zoom meeting, or an online class. So the question is how good we are taking the affective temperature in a physical or virtual room. However, Goldenberg and colleagues studied this question using arrays of a static face (the same face) with different expressions that were presented to participants in three different experiments. While I believe this is interesting and timely research, I worry a bit that it is difficult to translate these findings into the real world. As I have stated elsewhere, I look at interaction in real-time a bit as if it were a dance, where the dynamic entrainment of motions is an important element of understanding how a crowd reacts - whether there is brow movement when I say something controversial or difficult, whether there is chuckling when I tell a joke, or whether there is no response to a controversial statement. In this context a good speaker is setting up an expectation as to how a crowd reacts - this is why a script for a speech sometimes contains markers to make a pause to enable applause. In that sense, the expectation becomes a feed-forward to a perceptual process that is then sensitive to deviations from that expectations - this is when, if possible, there is time for the speaker to modulate the presentation - take more time, rephrase, emphasize. It would be fun to create such environments and test then experimentally, also with an eye-tracker, as in the third study of Goldenberg et al whether there is evidence not only for the effect of very intense reactions, but also of low expressivity in the context of expecting a response that does not happen. Goldenberg, A., Weisz, E., Sweeny, T. D., Cikara, M., & Gross, J. J. (2021). The Crowd-Emotion-Amplification Effect. Psychological Science, 32(3), 437–450. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620970561 A couple of my papers dealing with the dynamics of interaction Kappas, A. (2013). Social regulation of emotion: Messy layers. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, Article 51. (link) Kappas, A., & Descôteaux, J. (2003). Of butterflies and roaring thunder: Nonverbal communication in interaction and regulation of emotion. In Philippot, P., Coats, E.J., & Feldman, R.S. (Eds.) Nonverbal behavior in clinical settings (pp. 45-74). New York: Oxford University Press.
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Studie zum Thema COVID19 - For German language participantsWie gehen Sie mit der COVID Pandemie um? Hier ist ein Teil einer internationalen Studie, die ich mit meiner Doktorandin Ekaterina Lytkina und meinen Kollegen Craig Smith und Leslie Kirby von der Vanderbilt University durchführe. Die Teilnahme dauert zwischen 15 Minuten und einer halben Stunde. Wir bedanken uns für Ihre Mitarbeit.
Bitte teilen https://unipark.de/uc/BIGSSS/6325/ Time to make some orderSince 2014 I am Dean at Jacobs University. It has been difficult to keep up regular posting on this blog. so I made a bit of order, as many do in the times of COVID19, and deleted many of the outdated material here. More fresh material to come, real!soon!now! 
 Call for Papers for a Roundtable Issue on
Interdisciplinarity in Research on Emotion Inspired by a vivid discussion in the International Society for Research on Emotion (ISRE), Kodikas/ Code – Ars Semeiotica – An International Journal of Semiotics invites submissions for its roundtable issue on Interdisciplinarity in Research on Emotion. Bringing together scholars from different disciplines across the world, ISRE’s focus on interdisciplinarity reaches back to its foundation in 1984 and has just recently been reaffirmed at its biennial conference in Berkeley (ISRE 2013). In his inaugural address, newly elected president Arvid Kappas placed emphasis on the importance of interdisciplinary research in a broad sense, interconnecting not only natural sciences, computer science, and engineering but also social sciences and humanities. To institutionalize this emphasis, Kappas created a Task Force on Interdisciplinarity that sparked the discussion of interdisciplinarity among ISRE members. Through its roundtable issue, Kodikas aims to provide an open forum for discussing the opportunities and challenges of interdisciplinary research on emotion. In line with ISRE’s objective to facilitate research across decisively different fields, submissions are welcomed from scholars of all disciplines. The subject area comprises, but is not limited to: - opportunities, conditions, obstacles, and limits of interdisciplinary research on emotion, - epistemological questions of interdisciplinary research on emotion, - interdisciplinarity and affective computing, - interdisciplinarity regarding research on emotion in contexts of practical application, - a historiography of research on emotion within and across traditional discourse boundaries, - micro studies or ethnographies of interdisciplinary research on emotion, - interdisciplinarity, internationality, and culture, - communication, symbolic systems, and misunderstanding in interdisciplinary research on emotion, - interdisciplinarity, reputation, and academic careers, - interdisciplinary research on emotion and academic education, - organizing, managing, and institutionalizing interdisciplinary research on emotion, and - administrative and scholarly views on interdisciplinary research on emotion. The issue’s roundtable format grants contributors the opportunity to comment with a maximum of 1000 words on the other authors’ contributions. These comments will be published in the same issue. A journal of semiotics that promotes the interdisciplinary research characteristic of semiotics, Kodikas is keen to witness how scholars communicatively make sense of emotion as a subject within and across individual disciplines. Authors are thus encouraged to address the subject from their own points of view and not bound to a semiotic angle. Manuscripts should be between 4000 and 7500 words in length and formatted in accordance with the Kodikas Style Sheet. The deadline for paper submission (including an abstract of up to 200 words) is June 30, 2014. Submissions and requests for further details may be directed to guest editor Robin Kurilla (robin.kurilla@uni-due.de). Website: Kodikas/Code – Ars Semeiotica – An International Journal of Semiotics Editors: Prof. Dr. Achim Eschbach, Prof. Dr. Dr. Dr. h.c. Ernest W.B. Hess-Lüttich, and Prof. (em.) Dr. Jürgen Trabant  Kappas (left) and Parrott (right) I just come back from the biannual meeting of the International Society for Research on Emotions (ISRE), which was held at UC Berkeley in August. The conference was, as always, inspiring. Meetings like this are important at many different levels. There are formal presentations, for example. However, there are also many informal exchanges with members which touch on many different issues. A copy of the program can be found here.
However, this particular meeting was of special significance for me as I was elected president of the society. I took over from Prof. W. Gerrod Parrott who shepherded the society into a period of growth and stability. My term will be for a duration of two years. In this time I will try to help the society grow and prosper. I will also occasionally use this platform to link forth and back between society business and my regular blog. Arvid besucht die Große Show der Naturwunder In 2010 I was already once a guest in the Große Show der Naturwunder mit Frank Elstner und Ranga Yogeshwar ... and on July 11, 2013, there was a second one. This is a wonderful show that bridges science and education in a game format where some well-known contestants answer questions about science and technology. This time, I was involved as an expert on visual perception and specifically faces. The show is available online for a few more days and you can check it out here. Note that the show is in German, and the segment starts at 1:08:30 ... More soon, Enjoy! Here is some related literature:
Olk, B. & Kappas, A. (2011). Eye tracking technology as a tool for visual research. In E. Margolis, & L. Pauwels (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Visual Research Methods (pp. 433-451). London: SAGE Publications. Kappas, A., & Olk, B. (2008). The concept of visual competence as seen from the psychological and brain sciences. Visual Studies, 23, 162-173. doi:10.1080/14725860802276313 Today, Earth welcomes back Cmdr Chris Hadfield who touched many people, not only Canadians with his tweets and Youtube videos from board of the International Space Station (ISS). One of the last things Cmdr Hadfield did was to post a very cool rendition of David Bowie's Space Oddity. The music was recorded on earth and the singing on board of the ISS. The text is slightly altered from the original and rarely has this song been so relevant than here with Cmdr Hadfield leaving the ISS just a few hours later - looking one last time at Earth from that perspective ... I must admit, it brought a few tears to my eyes. The video was powerful - the music has so many associations for me, it was a particular moment in time that would never come back (you can do something for the first time only once). So why were there tears? Crying has been one of the interesting riddles - what is the function of crying? What is the evolutionary perspective on crying? Is crying good for you or bad for you? As it turns out, there are no easy answers. Darwin already was not completely sure what do with crying. Quote from Darwin (1872) (p. 172) In considering how far this view is probable, we should bear in mind that the eyes of infants have been acted on in this double manner during numberless generations, whenever they have screamed; and on the principle of nerve-force readily passing along accustomed channels, even a moderate compression of the eyeballs and a moderate distension of the ocular vessels would ultimately come, through habit, to act on the glands. We have an analogous case in the orbicular muscles being almost always contracted in some slight degree, even during a gentle crying-fit, when there can be no So the idea here is that forceful crying in the infant leads via mechanical reasons to the secretion of tears. Over time particular situations get associated with this type of fit, which in turn gets more and more controlled in the adult and so crying when adults are sad is a sort of remnant of this process. You can read the argument in more detail here. Since then many researchers have studied the mechanics and chemistry of crying and tears. It is still a complicated story though ... is it satisfying? Can it cope with sentimental crying? What about crying for joy? One of the key researchers on crying is Ad Vingerhoets from Tilburg University. Here is a brief article from the Guardian that refers also to Ad's recent book Why only humans weep. I have also tried my hand at the topic, but then - Ad's books are probably the best place to start ... In the meanwhile - Cmdr Hadfield answers the question what happens to tears in space ... References
Darwin, C. (1872). The expression of the emotions in man and animals. London, UK: Murray. Kappas, A. (2009). Mysterious tears. The phenomenon of crying from the perspective of social neuroscience. In: Thorsten Fögen (ed.), Tears in the Graeco-Roman World (pp. 419-438) , Berlin & New York,: DeGruyter.  I decided to start a second blog that focuses on Affective Computing. It is called Affective Computing Science and it will be a bit more technical and also contain links and or comments in that special field.
The ironic thing is of course that I do not have enough time for this blog, but then ... it is a challenge ... :-) This will focus on making machines more emotional or deal in more intelligent ways with human emotions. Check it out ...  Today my latest article was published at Frontiers in Psychology. The name of the article is Social Regulation of Emotion: Messy Layers Frontiers is an open access journal so the article can be easily downloaded and shared.
My article deals with the relationship of emotions and regulation. I believe that emotions regulate our behavior and the behavior of others. We and others are motivated to affect our emotions in turn due to their intrinsic properties. For example to make them go away, to change them, to replace them, or to strengthen them. Thus, the notion of emotion without thinking about regulation does not make much sense. I have developed these arguments over the last few years in several chapters and articles. Here is the abstract of the new article: Emotions are evolved systems of intra- and interpersonal processes that are regulatory in nature, dealing mostly with issues of personal or social concern. They regulate social interaction and in extension, the social sphere. In turn, processes in the social sphere regulate emotions of individuals and groups. In other words, intrapersonal processes project in the interpersonal space, and inversely, interpersonal experiences deeply influence intrapersonal processes. Thus, I argue that the concepts of emotion generation and regulation should not be artificially separated. Similarly, interpersonal emotions should not be reduced to interacting systems of intraindividual processes. Instead, we can consider emotions at different social levels, ranging from dyads to large scale e-communities. The interaction between these levels is complex and does not only involve influences from one level to the next. In this sense the levels of emotion/regulation are messy and a challenge for empirical study. In this article, I discuss the concepts of emotions and regulation at different intra- and interpersonal levels. I extend the concept of auto-regulation of emotions (Kappas, 2008, 2011a,b) to social processes. Furthermore, I argue for the necessity of including mediated communication, particularly in cyberspace in contemporary models of emotion/regulation. Lastly, I suggest the use of concepts from systems dynamics and complex systems to tackle the challenge of the “messy layers.” |
AuthorArvid Kappas is Professor of Psychology at Jacobs University Bremen. He has been conducting research on emotions for over three decades in the US, Canada, and in several European countries. Archives
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