Page 87 - Demo

Physiological Resonance and Interpretation of Emotional Expressions853interact with a social stimulus has been described to be highly influential in social attention (Laidlaw et al., 2011). Similarly, knowing that the counterpart has access to one%u2019s own expressions can alter observational tendencies, enhance social signalling and promote prosocial choices(Ca%u00f1igueral & Hamilton, 2019; Frith, 2009; Gobel et al., 2015). The degree of interactivity with a stimulus may thus determine the quality and strength of responses on multiple levels, including physiological signals (Schilbach et al., 2013). Based on experimental evidence looking at different aspects of social cognition and behaviour, Schilbach and colleagues (2013) called for a turn to a %u2018second-person neuroscience%u2019: Social phenomena should be investigated in real social settings with two (or more) actively-involved individuals, allowing to examine dynamics between, rather than only within, individuals. In the past years, this approach yielded promising insights in the behavioural and neural mechanisms underlying social interactions (Redcay & Schilbach, 2019). Recent findings successfully expanded an interactive viewpoint to the physiological level: Cooperation as a facet of prosocial behaviour was found to be positively associated with two interactants%u2019 synchronisation in SCLs (Behrens et al., 2020). Synchrony in SCLs, as well as in heart rate, was further shown to be predictive of interpersonal attraction (Prochazkova et al., 2021). Consequently, while facial mimicry of discrete emotions might inform the automatic categorization of emotional expressions in passive observers, the ANS might only be strongly activated by social signals in real social settings, with the dynamics between interactants reflecting their (emotional) alignment.In the future, researchers should try to keep experimental paradigms as close to real life situations as possible. In cases in which passive observation of stimuli is required, it can already be beneficial to use dynamic and naturalistic, non-posed expressions (Kret et al., 2020). Compared to static and posed emotional expressions, these types of stimuli elicit stronger facial mimicry (Rymarczyk et al., 2011; Sato et al., 2008). In attempts to link physiological changes with subjective experiences of others%u2019 emotions, it would, additionally, be interesting to include measures of interoceptive abilities. As understanding one%u2019s own body has already successfully been linked to understanding one%u2019s own emotions (Critchley & Garfinkel, 2017; Kanbara & Fukunaga, 2016), accurate interoceptive inferences might also be important prerequisites to connect to others%u2019 emotions (Arnold et al., 2019).