In the present paper, we focus on the bodily habit of face mask-wearing in everyday life to test at what extent material artifacts exert a retroactive effect on bodily Self-consciousness, intertwined as it is with face awareness. We gathered consistent evidence from 48 qualitative semi-structured interviews with naive and experienced participants. Self-reports on facial expressions production show that the interference of the face mask with the face disrupts facial expressions Self-awareness. This disruption is told to be managed through two non-mutually exclusive strategies: inhibiting and enhancing facial and bodily movements. We explain these as due to the "material performative agency" of the face mask, whose multisensorial components and affordances affect the fundamental experience of "being seen qua seeable" by others. While we endorse the phenomenological account whereby being seen grants bodily Self-consciousness, we argue that such a scenario does not operate in and for itself, because the material conditions under which human beings are exposed to onlookers shape their experience of being seeable. To develop the argument, we proposed an original understanding of the gazing process as materially dependent. Finally, our discussion of bodily Self-consciousness backs up the idea that an ecological approach is essential when addressing Self related topics from the first-person perspective.

IntroductionThis study explores how drone movements and human bodily gestures influence spectators’ perceptions, focusing on physical and emotional involvement, aesthetic appreciation, and time perception.MethodsInspired by the iconic staircase scene from the Soviet film The Cranes Are Flying (1957), a set of 81 naturalistic video stimuli was created using a drone-mounted camera, varying in Drone Movement (Ascending, Descending, Still), Human Presence (Female, Male, None), and Image Speed (Normal, Low, Very Slow). Participants evaluated each video based on Liking, Perceived Movement, Physical Involvement, Emotional Involvement and Perceived Duration.Results and discussionResults showed that ascending movements elicited the highest levels of perceived movement, aesthetic appreciation and emotional engagement, outperforming descending and still movements. These results could be explained by a stronger sense of effort and exertion associated with ascending movements, aligning with the embodied simulation of upward motion against gravity. Human presence significantly enhanced ratings across all metrics compared to videos without human figures, thus suggesting that bodily movements play a crucial role in evoking stronger viewer involvement. Additionally, the Female condition received higher aesthetic ratings. Notably, normal image speed yielded greater perceived movement and physical involvement than slowed footage, highlighting a stronger connection to the natural rhythm of bodies in motion. Furthermore, ascending and descending conditions were perceived as lasting longer than still, corroborating prior research on time perception distortions with dynamic stimuli. Correlation analysis highlighted a strong link between physical involvement, emotional engagement, and aesthetic appreciation, underscoring the interplay between bodily and emotional responses. This study emphasizes the potential of drone-based cinematography to evoke embodied and emotional responses, reinforcing the role of embodied simulation theory in cinematic experiences.

EEG microstates are brief, stable topographical configurations of brain activity that provide insights into alterations in brain function and connectivity. Anomalies in microstates are associated with different neuropsychiatric conditions, especially schizophrenia. Recent advances in both EEG techniques and machine learning point to the potential role of microstates as diagnostic markers for psychotic disorders. This systematic review aims to gather current knowledge on machine learning applied to EEG microstate analysis in psychotic disorders. Following PRISMA guidelines, we searched Scopus, PubMed, and Scholar databases, including 10 studies. Overall results show that EEG microstates can be used to accurately classify diagnoses within the psychosis spectrum, across all stages, outperforming models based on conventional EEG measures, with a prominent role of microstate D. One study also suggests that microstate anomalies may be directly linked to symptom severity. Integrating EEG microstates with machine learning shows promise in improving our understanding of psychotic disorders and developing more precise diagnostic tools.

Wearing facial masks became a common practice worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study investigated (1) whether facial masks that cover adult faces affect 4- to 6-year-old children's recognition of emotions in those faces and (2) whether the duration of children's exposure to masks is associated with emotion recognition. We tested children from Switzerland (N = 38) and Brazil (N = 41). Brazil represented longer mask exposure due to a stricter mandate during COVID-19. Children had to choose a face displaying a specific emotion (happy, angry, or sad) when the face wore either no cover, a facial mask, or sunglasses. The longer hours of mask exposure were associated with better emotion recognition. Controlling for the hours of exposure, children were less likely to recognise emotions in partially hideen faces. Moreover, Brazilian children were more accurate in recognising happy faces than Swiss children. Overall, facial masks may negatively impact children's emotion recognition. However, prolonged exposure appears to buffer the lack of facial cues from the nose and mouth. In conclusion, restricting facial cues due to masks may impair kindergarten children's emotion recognition in the short run. However, it may facilitate their broader reading of facial emotional cues in the long run.

Several studies demonstrated that explicit forms of negation processing (e.g., “I don’t know”) recruits motor inhibitory mechanisms. However, whether this is also true for implicit negation, in which the negative meaning is implicated but not explicitly lexicalized in the sentence (e.g., “I ignore”), has never been studied before. Two Go/No-Go studies, which differed only for the time-windows to respond to the Go stimulus, were carried out. In each, participants (N = 86 in experiment 1; N = 87 in experiment 2) respond to coloured circle while reading task-irrelevant affirmative, explicit negative and implicit negative sentences. We aimed to investigate whether: (i) the processing of implicit negations recruits inhibitory mechanisms; (ii) these inhibitory resources are differently modulated by implicit and explicit negations. Results show that implicit negative sentences recruit the inhibitory resources more strongly when compared to explicit ones, probably due to their inferential nature, likely requiring deeper processing of the negative meaning. Implicit and inferential meaning (i.e., pragmatic information) are grounded too in the same mechanisms that integrate action with perception. Such findings provide further evidence to the embodied account of language, showing that even abstract aspects, like implicit negation, are grounded in the sensory-motor system, by means of functional link between language and motor activity.

This pioneer study focuses on the feedback effect that the face mask has on its wearer's sense of Self (i.e. bodily Self-consciousness) caused by its multisensorial components and affordances which are taken into account from a first-person perspective approach. On the grounds of enactivism and Material Engagement Theory, we run qualitative semi-structured interviews recruiting 48 participants: 24 people had no experience using lower face coverings before COVID-19 pandemic (February 2020) and 24 people were hospital workers with such prior experience. Results show that face mask wearing dramatically updates bodily Self-consciousness retroacting on breathing experience, with differences between the two groups. This is consistent with evidence showing that breathing is "transparent" unless bodily, environmental, and/or emotional changes arouse a situated awareness of it. We conclude that the face mask performs a retroactive effect, which we explained as due to a "material performative agency" that significantly modifies the standard balance between the transparency and the opacity of our bodily Self-consciousness.

In the last decades, the embodied approach to cognition and language gained momentum in the scientific debate, leading to evidence in different aspects of language processing. However, while the bodily grounding of concrete concepts seems to be relatively not controversial, abstract aspects, like the negation logical operator, are still today one of the main challenges for this research paradigm. In this framework, the present study has a twofold aim: (1) to assess whether mechanisms for motor inhibition underpin the processing of sentential negation, thus, providing evidence for a bodily grounding of this logic operator, (2) to determine whether the Stop-Signal Task, which has been used to investigate motor inhibition, could represent a good tool to explore this issue. Twenty-three participants were recruited in this experiment. Ten hand-action-related sentences, both in affirmative and negative polarity, were presented on a screen. Participants were instructed to respond as quickly and accurately as possible to the direction of the Go Stimulus (an arrow) and to withhold their response when they heard a sound following the arrow. This paradigm allows estimating the Stop Signal Reaction Time (SSRT), a covert reaction time underlying the inhibitory process. Our results show that the SSRT measured after reading negative sentences are longer than after reading affirmative ones, highlighting the recruitment of inhibitory mechanisms while processing negative sentences. Furthermore, our methodological considerations suggest that the Stop-Signal Task is a good paradigm to assess motor inhibition’s role in the processing of sentence negation.

Wearing facial masks became a common practice around the world in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. To understand how the partial covering of facial emotional cues may influence children’s emotion recognition, this study investigated (1) whether facial masks that cover adult faces affect 4- to 6-year-old children’s recognition of emotions in those faces and (2) whether the duration of children’s exposure to masks is associated with emotion recognition. We tested children from Switzerland (N = 38) and Brazil (N = 41). Brazil represented longer mask exposure due to a stricter mandate during COVID-19. Children had to choose a face displaying a specific emotion (happy, angry, or sad) when the face wore either no cover, a facial mask, or sunglasses. The longer hours of mask exposure were associated with better emotion recognition. Controlling for the hours of exposure, children were less likely to recognize emotions in faces that were partially hidden. Moreover, Brazilian children, who had greater exposure to masks in their daily lives, were more accurate in recognizing happy faces than Swiss children. Overall, facial masks may negatively impact children’s emotion recognition in the covered face. However, prolonged exposure appears to buffer the lack of facial cues from the nose and mouth. In conclusion, restricting facial cues due to masks may impair kindergarten children’s emotion recognition in the short run. However, it may facilitate their broader reading of facial emotional cues in the long run.

Although many studies have investigated spectators' cinematic experience, only a few of them explored the neurophysiological correlates of the sense of presence evoked by the spatial characteristics of audio delivery devices. Nevertheless, nowadays both the industrial and the consumer markets have been saturated by some forms of spatial audio format that enrich the audio-visual cinematic experience, reducing the gap between the real and the digitally mediated world. The increase in the immersive capabilities corresponds to the instauration of both the sense of presence and the psychological sense of being in the virtual environment and also embodied simulation mechanisms. While it is well-known that these mechanisms can be activated in the real world, it is hypothesized that they may be elicited even in a virtual acoustic spatial environment and could be modulated by the acoustic spatialization cues reproduced by sound systems. Hence, the present study aims to investigate the neural basis of the sense of presence evoked by different forms of mediation by testing different acoustic space sound delivery (Presentation modes: Monophonic, Stereo, and Surround). To these aims, a behavioral investigation and a high-density electroencephalographic (HD-EEG) study have been developed. A large set of ecological and heterogeneous stimuli extracted from feature films were used. Furthermore, participants were selected following the generalized listener selection procedure. We found a significantly higher event-related desynchronization (ERD) in the Surround Presentation mode when compared to the Monophonic Presentation mode both in Alpha and Low-Beta centro-parietal clusters. We discuss this result as an index of embodied simulation mechanisms that could be considered as a possible neurophysiological correlation of the instauration of the sense of presence.

Embodied music cognition predicts that our understanding of human-made sounds relates to our experience of making the same or similar movements and sounds, which involves imitation of the source of visual and auditory information. This embodiment of sound may lead to numerous kinetic cross-modal correspondences (CMCs). This article investigates music experience in participants with a non-professionally trained music background across three musical dimensions: Contour (Ascending, Descending, Flat), Vertical Density (Low, Medium, High), and Note Pattern (Binary, Ternary, Quaternary). In order that stimuli should reflect contemporary musical usage yet be subject to a high degree of experimental control, 27 ten-second digital piano tracks were created in collaboration with a film composer. In Study 1, participants were asked to rate the stimuli for perceived Direction, Rotation, Movement, and Emotional and Physical Involvement. We test the effects of these factors in terms of the following theories: general and vocal embodied responses to music, the Ecological Theory of Rotating Sounds, and the Shared Affective Motion Experience model of emotion induction. Results for Study 1 were consistent with theories of general and vocal embodied responses to music, as well as with theories of embodied emotional contagion in music. Study 1 also revealed potential confounds in the stimuli, which were further investigated in Study 2 with a new set of participants rating the stimuli for perceived Pitch, Loudness, and Speed. Results for Study 2 served to dissociate intrinsic features of the stimuli from CMCs. Taken together, the two studies reveal a range of embodied CMCs. Although there are limitations to a perceptual study such as this, these stimuli stand to benefit future research in further investigating the embodiment of musical motion.

A classical theoretical frame to interpret motor reactions to emotional stimuli is that such stimuli, particularly those threat-related, are processed preferentially, i.e., they are capable of capturing and grabbing attention automatically. Research has recently challenged this view, showing that the task relevance of emotional stimuli is crucial to having a reliable behavioral effect. Such evidence indicated that emotional facial expressions do not automatically influence motor responses in healthy young adults, but they do so only when intrinsically pertinent to the ongoing subject's goals. Given the theoretical relevance of these findings, it is essential to assess their generalizability to different, socially relevant emotional stimuli such as emotional body postures. To address this issue, we compared the performance of 36 right-handed participants in two different versions of a Go/No-go task. In the Emotional Discrimination task, participants were required to withhold their responses at the display of emotional body postures (fearful or happy) and to move at the presentation of neutral postures. Differently, in the control task, the same images were shown, but participants had to respond according to the color of the actor/actress' t-shirt, disregarding the emotional content. Results showed that participants made more commission errors (instances in which they moved even though the No-go signal was presented) for happy than fearful body postures in the Emotional Discrimination task. However, this difference disappeared in the control task. Such evidence indicates that, like facial emotion, emotional body expressions do not influence motor control automatically, but only when they are task-relevant.

The meaning of music may rely upon perceived motion (Zuckerkandl, 1971). Recently, the framework of embodied music cognition, which draws on the discovery of mirror neurons and the theory of embodied simulation (Gallese, 2007), makes the claim that our understanding of human-made sounds draws upon our experience of making the same or similar movements and sounds, which involves imitation of the source of visual and auditory information (Cox, 2011). This paper investigates perceived motion and embodied music experience in non-musicians across three musical dimensions: melodic contour (ascending, descending and flat), melodic complexity (low, medium, high) and, following from Hanson and Huron (2019), note pattern (binary, ternary, quaternary). As part of an initiative to adhere to a high aesthetic standard, 27 ten-second piano tracks were created in collaboration with a film composer. In the computer task, participants rated stimuli on a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) ranging from 0 to 100 for perceived Direction, Rotation, Movement, and Emotional and Physical Involvement. Results showed that: 1) Quaternary conditions were perceived as having significantly more Rotation, Movement and being more Physically Involving than Ternary and Binary, 2) High Complexity conditions were perceived as evoking significantly more Movement and being more Emotionally Involving than Low and Medium, and 3) Ascending conditions were perceived as having significantly more Movement, Rotation and being more Emotionally and Physically Involving than Descending and Flat. Results indicate that greater embodiment evoked by musical ascent may be modulated by greater perceived exertion or ‘effort’ to reach higher pitches, in line with the mimetic subvocalization hypothesis (Cox, 2017). Future studies are needed to investigate whether perceived rotation is driven by note pattern (i.e. metre) or note density and pitch., and how musical contour and rotation impact sensorimotor activation in the brain.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the nature of our social interactions. In order to understand how protective equipment and distancing measures influence the ability to comprehend others’ emotions and, thus, to effectively interact with others, we carried out an online study across the Italian population during the first pandemic peak. Participants were shown static facial expressions (Angry, Happy and Neutral) covered by a sanitary mask or by a scarf. They were asked to evaluate the expressed emotions as well as to assess the degree to which one would adopt physical and social distancing measures for each stimulus. Results demonstrate that, despite the covering of the lower-face, participants correctly recognized the facial expressions of emotions with a polarizing effect on emotional valence ratings found in females. Noticeably, while females’ ratings for physical and social distancing were driven by the emotional content of the stimuli, males were influenced by the “covered” condition. The results also show the impact of the pandemic on anxiety and fear experienced by participants. Taken together, our results offer novel insights on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on social interactions, providing a deeper understanding of the way people react to different kinds of protective face covering.

Several studies demonstrated that the processing of explicit forms of negation recruits motor inhibitory mechanisms. However, whether this is also true for implicit negation, in which the negative meaning is implicated but not explicitly lexicalized in the sentence (e.g., “I ignore”), has never been studied before. This study aims to address this issue via two Go/NoGo experiments applied to the processing of affirmative, explicit and implicit negation sentences, which differed for the response time-windows to the Go stimulus available to participants. We investigated whether: (i) the processing of implicit negations recruits inhibitory mechanisms; (ii) the inhibitory control mechanisms are differently modulated by implicit and explicit negations. Since we posit that motor inhibitory mechanisms are modulated by both (i) the polarity of the sentence and (ii) the Go/NoGo paradigm, two after-effect analyses on reaction times in Go trials were carried out. Results suggest that implicit negation sentences determine stronger involvement of motor inhibitory mechanisms than the explicit ones. The different processing of the two forms of negation could be explained by the more negative emotional valence of implicit negation and by its inferential nature, which might require deeper processing of the negative meaning, leading to greater activation of the sensory-motor system.

According to embodied simulation theory, humans tacitly ‘simulate’ the actions of the other by mapping them in the sensorimotor cortex of the brain. According to the framework of embodied cinema, the meaning-making process in film is considered to be inextricably linked to the interrelation between the brain, body and environment of the viewer. Athough there are a growing number of theoretical and technological studies on the embodied nature of drone flight, to date no studies have investigated the effect of drone footage with and without human bodily movement on spectators’ cognitive behavioral mechanisms. Thus, the present study investigates the relationship between Drone Movement (Ascending, Descending, Still) , Actor Presence (Female, Male, None) and Image Speed (Normal, Slow, Very Slow) on perceived motion, appeal and involvement measures. To achieve these aims, a custom-made, naturalistic set of video stimuli modeled after the staircase scene in the Soviet film The Cranes Are Flying (Kalatozov, 1957) was created using a DJI Phantom Pro 4 Drone. In the experimental task (carried out at the computer), participants were asked to rate video stimuli using a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) ranging from 0 to 100 for perceived Duration, Liking, Movement, and Emotional and Physical Involvement. Results demonstrate that: 1) Ascending and Descending had significantly higher ratings for perceived Duration, Movement and Physical and Emotional Involvement than Still; 2) Ascending had significantly higher ratings for perceived Duration, Movement and Emotional Involvement than Descending; 3) Female and Male had significantly higher ratings for Movement, Physical Involvement and Emotional Involvement than None (No Actor); 4) Normal Image Speed had significantly higher ratings for Movement, Physical Involvement and Emotional Involvement with respect to Slow and Very Slow. Results indicate that drone/actor ascent may evoke more motion and involvement due to perceived exertion or ‘effort’ to climb up the stairs, and that participants resonate more with conspecifics and familiar repertoires, in support of embodied simulation theory. Results also indicate that movement in the drone/actor image modulates perceived time. Neuroimaging studies are needed to investiate the impact of drone movement with or without human bodily movement on cortical sensorimotor activation in the brain.

Studies on the lateralization of facial perception and the asymmetry of facial emotional expressions date back to the 19th century. Several left-side biases have been identified: greater expressivity of the left side of the face, a left cheek bias (i.e. a preference to display one’s left cheek), a left visual field advantage (i.e. a preference and improved performance when stimuli are presented in the left visual field), a left gaze bias (i.e. a preference to direct and to spend more time looking at the left side of centrally presented faces, i.e. the anatomical right side). The simultaneous occurrence of these left-side biases, however, has hardly been studied. Thus, we recorded participants’ visual scan-paths and emotional intensity ratings of the depicted faces of pre-19th century self-portraits (i.e. anatomical left side of the face in the left visual field), portraits (i.e. anatomical left side of the face in the right visual field), and their mirror-reversed formats. Self-portraits evoked greater emotional intensity ratings and shorter latencies of the first fixation than portraits, regardless of their format. In addition, for self-portraits the duration of the first fixation was longer for the anatomical left hemi-face. We hypothesize that the observation of self-portraits may arouse greater sensorimotor engagement in the observer as a result of the greater sensorimotor engagement of the artist while painting them.

Bodily postures are essential to correctly comprehend others’ emotions and intentions. Nonetheless, very few studies focused on the pattern of eye movements implicated in the recognition of emotional body language (EBL), demonstrating significant differences in relation to different emotions. A yet unanswered question regards the presence of the “left-gaze bias” (i.e. the tendency to look first, to make more fixations and to spend more looking time on the left side of centrally presented stimuli) while scanning bodies. Hence, the present study aims at exploring both the presence of a left-gaze bias and the modulation of EBL visual exploration mechanisms, by investigating the fixation patterns (number of fixations and latency of the first fixation) of participants while judging the emotional intensity of static bodily postures (Angry, Happy and Neutral, without head). While results on the latency of first fixations demonstrate for the first time the presence of the left-gaze bias while scanning bodies, suggesting that it could be related to the stronger expressiveness of the left hand (from the observer’s point of view), results on fixations’ number only partially fulfil our hypothesis. Moreover, an opposite viewing pattern between Angry and Happy bodily postures is showed. In sum, the present results, by integrating the spatial and temporal dimension of gaze exploration patterns, shed new light on EBL visual exploration mechanisms.

Cardiac synchrony is a crucial component of shared experiences, considered as an objective measure of emotional processes accompanying empathic interactions. No study has investigated whether cardiac synchrony among people engaged in collective situations links to the individual emotional evaluation of the shared experience. We investigated theatrical live performances as collective experiences evoking strong emotional engagement in the audience. Cross Recurrence Quantification Analysis was applied to obtain the cardiac synchrony of twelve spectators’ quartets attending to two live acting performances. This physiological measure was then correlated with spectators’ emotional intensity ratings. Results showed an expected increment in synchrony among people belonging to the same quartet during both performances attendance and rest periods. Furthermore, participants’ cardiac synchrony was found to be correlated with audience’s convergence in the explicit emotional evaluation of the performances they attended to. These findings demonstrate that the mere co-presence of other people sharing a common experience is enough for cardiac synchrony to occur spontaneously and that it increases in function of a shared and coherent explicit emotional experience.

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the nature of our social interactions. In order to understand how protective equipment and distancing measures influence the ability to comprehend others’ emotions and, thus, to effectively interact with others, we carried out an online survey across the Italian population during the first pandemic peak. Participants were shown static facial expressions (Angry, Happy and Neutral) covered by a sanitary mask or by a scarf. They were asked to evaluate the expressed emotions as well as to assess the degree to which one would adopt physical and social distancing measures for each stimulus. Results demonstrate that, despite the covering of the lower-face, participants correctly recognized the facial expressions of emotions with a polarizing effect on emotional valence ratings found in females. Noticeably, while females’ ratings for physical and social distancing were driven by the emotional content of the stimuli, males were influenced by the “covered” condition. The results also show the impact of the pandemic on anxiety and fear experienced by participants. Taken together, our results offer novel insights on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on social interactions, providing a deeper understanding of the way people react to different kinds of protective face covering.

Experimental aesthetics has shed light on the involvement of pre-motor areas in the perception of abstract art. However, the contribution of texture perception to aesthetic experience is still understudied. We hypothesized that digital screen-based art, despite its immateriality, might suggest potential sensorimotor stimulation. Original born-digital works of art were selected and manipulated by the artist himself. Five behavioral parameters: Beauty, Liking, Touch, Proximity, and Movement, were investigated under four experimental conditions: Resolution (high/low), and Magnitude (Entire image/detail). These were expected to modulate the quantity of material and textural information afforded by the image. While the Detail condition afforded less content-related information, our results show that it augmented the image’s haptic appeal. High Resolution improved the haptic and aesthetic properties of the images. Furthermore, aesthetic ratings positively correlated with sensorimotor ratings. Our results demonstrate a strict relation between the aesthetic and sensorimotor/haptic qualities of the images, empirically establishing a relationship between beholders’ bodily involvement and their aesthetic judgment of visual works of art. In addition, we found that beholders’ oculomotor behavior is selectively modulated by the perceptual manipulations being performed. The eye-tracking results indicate that the observation of the Entire, original images is the only condition in which the latency of the first fixation is shorter when participants gaze to the left side of the images. These results thus demonstrate the existence of a left-side bias during the observation of digital works of art, in particular, while participants are observing their original version.