Arvid Kappas

Arvid Kappas Jacobs University Bremen

Key research interests: Expressive behavior in social context (often measured using facial EMG) :: Perception of emotion :: Appraisals :: Physiological responses associated with affective processes :: Empathy and facial feedback :: Psychological underpinnings of the uncanny valley :: Collective emotions in Cyberspace :: Face-to-face communication over the Internet :: Emotional reactions to press photography :: Social neuroscience

Kappas, A. (2002). The science of emotion as a multidisciplinary research paradigm. In Behavioural Processes, 60, 85-98.

I discuss the emergence of a science of emotion and argue that research in this domain requires an appreciation of the organization of emotional processes at different levels as postulated by social neuroscience. Emotions cannot be understood without relying on a program of multidisciplinary research. Local multidisciplinarity cannot be achieved without a programmatic framework that takes three issues into account (1) the relationship of multiple levels of emotions and connected processes, (2) the mutually informative study of humans, animals, and artificial systems, and (3) the dynamic nature of emotions in a dynamic systems approach. Illustrations for my arguments are provided relating to facial expressions of humans.

Krumhuber, E., Manstead, A. S. R., & Kappas, A. (2007). Temporal aspects of facial displays in person and expression perception: The effects of smile dynamics, head-tilt, and gender. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 31, 39-56.

Recent work suggests that temporal aspects of facial displays influence the perception of the perceived authenticity of a smile. In the present research, the impact of temporal aspects of smiles on person and expression perception was explored in combination with head-tilt and gender. One hundred participants were shown different types of smiles (slow versus fast onset) in combination with three forms of head-tilt (none, left, or right) exhibited by six computer-generated male and female encoders. The encoders were rated for perceived attractiveness, trustworthiness, dominance, and the smiles were rated for flirtatiousness and authenticity. Slow onset smiles led to more positive evaluations of the encoder and the smiles. Judgments were also significantly influenced by head-tilt and participant and encoder gender, demonstrating the combined effect of all three variables on expression and person perception.