According to the findings of a new study, emotions trigger various bodily sensations, some stronger than others.
Emotions are known to maintain mental and bodily stability. However, researchers were not able to understand how these emotions are mapped by the body, up until now.
The current study was conducted by Aalto University researchers. They found that the most common emotions trigger strong bodily sensations. Also, the bodily maps of these sensations were topographically different for different emotions.
These sensation patterns were the same for people from different West European and East Asian cultures, highlighting that those emotions and their corresponding bodily sensation patterns have a biological basis. Some sensations include pain in the chest while feeling "anxious" or a warm, pleasurable sensation throughout the body when in "love."
"Emotions adjust not only our mental, but also our bodily states. This way they prepare us to react swiftly to the dangers, but also to the opportunities such as pleasurable social interactions present in the environment," said assistant professor Lauri Nummenmaa from Aalto University in a press statement. "Awareness of the corresponding bodily changes may subsequently trigger the conscious emotional sensations, such as the feeling of happiness."
The study included and online survey where more than 700 individuals from Finland, Sweden and Taiwan took part. Researchers induced various emotions in the participants. They were then shown pictures of human bodies on a computer, and asked to color the bodily regions whose activity they felt was increasing or decreasing.
"The findings have major implications for our understanding of the functions of emotions and their bodily basis. On the other hand, the results help us to understand different emotional disorders and provide novel tools for their diagnosis," Nummenmaa concluded.
The study is published in the journal Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences of The United States of America (PNAS).
