Cultural scripting of body parts for emotions

2002 ◽  
Vol 10 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 27-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felix K. Ameka

Different languages present a variety of ways of talking about emotional experience. Very commonly, feelings are described through the use of ‘body image constructions’ in which they are associated with processes in, or states of, specific body parts. The emotions and the body parts that are thought to be their locus and the kind of activity associated with these body parts vary cross-culturally. This study focuses on the meaning of three ‘body image constructions’ used to describe feelings similar to, but also different from, English ‘jealousy’, ‘envy’, and ‘covetousness’ in the West African language Ewe. It is demonstrated that a ‘moving body’, a pychologised eye, and red eyes are scripted for these feelings. It is argued that the expressions are not figurative and that their semantics provide good clues to understanding the cultural construction of emotions both emotions and the body.

2002 ◽  
Vol 10 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 27-55 ◽  

Different languages present a variety of ways of talking about emotional experience. Very commonly, feelings are described through the use of ‘body image constructions’ in which they are associated with processes in, or states of, specific body parts. The emotions and the body parts that are thought to be their locus and the kind of activity associated with these body parts vary cross-culturally. This study focuses on the meaning of three ‘body image constructions’ used to describe feelings similar to, but also different from, English ‘jealousy’, ‘envy’, and ‘covetousness’ in the West African language Ewe. It is demonstrated that a ‘moving body’, a pychologised eye, and red eyes are scripted for these feelings. It is argued that the expressions are not figurative and that their semantics provide good clues to understanding the cultural construction of emotions both emotions and the body.


Perception ◽  
10.1068/p5853 ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 36 (10) ◽  
pp. 1547-1554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Pavani ◽  
Massimiliano Zampini

When a hand (either real or fake) is stimulated in synchrony with our own hand concealed from view, the felt position of our own hand can be biased toward the location of the seen hand. This intriguing phenomenon relies on the brain's ability to detect statistical correlations in the multisensory inputs (ie visual, tactile, and proprioceptive), but it is also modulated by the pre-existing representation of one's own body. Nonetheless, researchers appear to have accepted the assumption that the size of the seen hand does not matter for this illusion to occur. Here we used a real-time video image of the participant's own hand to elicit the illusion, but we varied the hand size in the video image so that the seen hand was either reduced, veridical, or enlarged in comparison to the participant's own hand. The results showed that visible-hand size modulated the illusion, which was present for veridical and enlarged images of the hand, but absent when the visible hand was reduced. These findings indicate that very specific aspects of our own body image (ie hand size) can constrain the multisensory modulation of the body schema highlighted by the fake-hand illusion paradigm. In addition, they suggest an asymmetric tendency to acknowledge enlarged (but not reduced) images of body parts within our body representation.


Body schema refers to the system of sensory-motor functions that enables control of the position of body parts in space, without conscious awareness of those parts. Body image refers to a conscious representation of the way the body appears—a set of conscious perceptions, affective attitudes, and beliefs pertaining to one’s own bodily image. In 2005, Shaun Gallagher published an influential book entitled ‘How the Body Shapes the Mind’. This book not only defined both body schema (BS) and body image (BI), but also explored the complicated relationship between the two. The book also established the idea that there is a double dissociation, whereby body schema and body image refer to two different, but closely related, systems. Given that many kinds of pathological cases can be described in terms of body schema and body image (phantom limbs, asomatognosia, apraxia, schizophrenia, anorexia, depersonalization, and body dysmorphic disorder, among others), we might expect to find a growing consensus about these concepts and the relevant neural activities connected to these systems. Instead, an examination of the scientific literature reveals continued ambiguity and disagreement. This volume brings together leading experts from the fields of philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, and psychiatry in a lively and productive dialogue. It explores fundamental questions about the relationship between body schema and body image, and addresses ongoing debates about the role of the brain and the role of social and cultural factors in our understanding of embodiment.


Author(s):  
Hirotaka Osawa ◽  
◽  
Jun Mukai ◽  
Michita Imai ◽  

We propose an anthropomorphization framework that determines an object’s body image. This framework directly intervenes and anthropomorphizes objects in ubiquitous-computing environments through robotic body parts shaped like those of human beings, which provide information through spoken directions and body language. Our purpose is to demonstrate that an object acquires subjective representations through anthropomorphization. Using this framework, people can more fully understand instructions given by an object. We designed an anthropomorphization framework that changes the body image by attaching body parts. We also conducted experiments to evaluate this framework. Results indicate that the site at which an anthropomorphization device is attached influences human perception of the object’s virtual body image, and participants in experiments understood several instructions given by the object more clearly. Results also indicate that participants better intuited their devices’ instructions and movement in ubiquitous-computing environments.


2021 ◽  
pp. 229-243
Author(s):  
Jonathan Cole

In neurological illnesses, the body may present itself to perception in ways which allows insights into the concepts of body image and body schema. Three such conditions are explored. From those who live with spinal cord injury, paralysed and insentient from the neck down, aspects of the importance of the body in one’s sense of self are revealed. Some also describe a coming to terms with their altered bodies. When considering the body image, its adaptability and this reconciliation to a new normal should be considered. Studies on acquired severe sensory loss explore how conscious control, at the body image level, may partially replace the deafferented body schema. There is little evidence, however, for these subjects extending access to previously non-conscious motor schema. Lastly, some narratives from those with congenital absence of movement of facial muscles describe reduced emotional experience and felt embodiment as children. These can be developed as young adults, through shared social interactions. The importance of the social in elaboration of the body image is further implicit in a consideration of the stigma associated with facial disfigurement. Others’ responses to one’s body are crucial in developing our body image and sense of self.


1967 ◽  
Vol 24 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1131-1142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franklin C. Shontz

24 men and 24 women college students estimated the sizes of 13 body stimuli and 13 nonbody objects by adjusting markers on a horizontal rod and by drawing 1:4 scale pictures of their own bodies. Data were scores expressing response size as a percentage of stimulus size. In both response modes, percentage scores for body stimuli assumed a pattern that was not evident in estimates of nonbody-object sizes. Combinations of body parts, judged as a unit, were underestimated relative to estimates of component body parts judged separately. Ss' free drawings of the human figure, rated for disturbance in body image, were not significantly related to size-estimations of body or nonbody stimuli.


2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josephine E.A Boyington ◽  
Britta Schoster ◽  
Leigh F Callahan

Objective : To explore the disease-related, body image (BI) perceptions of women diagnosed with, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and fibromyalgia (FM). Methods : A purposive sample of twenty-seven females participated in individual semi-structured phone interviews to elicit BI perceptions relative to pain, activity limitations and coping measures. Sessions were digitally recorded, transcribed verbatim, and content analyzed. Results : Body image perceptions relative to 5 major themes emerged in the analysis. They focused on Pain, Disease Impact on Physical and Mental Function, Weight, Diseased-Induced Fears and, Coping measures. Pain was a common experience of all participants. Other troubling factors verbalized by participants included dislike and shame of visibly affected body parts, and disease-induced social, psychological and physical limitations. RA participants thought that manifested joint changes, such as swelling and redness, undergirded their prompt diagnosis and receipt of health care. Contrarily, women with fibromyalgia perceived that the lack of visible, disease-related, physical signs led to a discounting of their disease, which led to delayed health care and subsequent frustrations and anger. All but one participant used prayer and meditation as a coping measure. Conclusion : The body image perceptions evidenced by the majority of participants were generally negative and included specific focus on their disease-affected body parts (e.g. joints), mental function, self-identity, health care experiences, activity limitations and overall quality of life. Given the global effect of RA and FM, assessment and integration of findings about the BI perceptions of individuals with FM and RA may help define suitable interdisciplinary strategies for managing these conditions and improving participants’ quality of life.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Waqas Ahmed ◽  
Muhammad Haroon Yousaf ◽  
Amanullah Yasin

In the current era of technological development, human actions can be recorded in public places like airports, shopping malls, and educational institutes, etc., to monitor suspicious activities like terrorism, fighting, theft, and vandalism. Surveillance videos contain adequate visual and motion information for events that occur within a camera’s view. Our study focuses on the concept that actions are a sequence of moving body parts. In this paper, a new descriptor is proposed that formulates human poses and tracks the relative motion of human body parts along with the video frames, and extracts the position and orientation of body parts. We used Part Affinity Fields (PAFs) to acquire the associated body parts of the people present in the frame. The architecture jointly learns the body parts and their associations with other body parts in a sequential process, such that a pose can be formulated step by step. We can obtain the complete pose with a limited number of points as it moves along the video and we can conclude with a defined action. Later, these feature points are classified with a Support Vector Machine (SVM). The proposed work was evaluated on the benchmark datasets, namely, UT-interaction, UCF11, CASIA, and HCA datasets. Our proposed scheme was evaluated on the aforementioned datasets, which contained criminal/suspicious actions, such as kick, punch, push, gun shooting, and sword-fighting, and achieved an accuracy of 96.4% on UT-interaction, 99% on UCF11, 98% on CASIA and 88.72% on HCA.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan H. Massey ◽  
Jun Li ◽  
David L. Stern ◽  
Patricia J. Wittkopp

AbstractUnderstanding the genetic basis of species differences is a major goal in evolutionary biology. Pigmentation divergence between Drosophila species often involves genetic changes in pigmentation candidate genes that pattern the body and wings, but it remains unclear how these changes affect pigmentation evolution in multiple body parts between the same diverging species. Drosophila elegans and D. gunungcola show pigmentation differences in the thorax, legs, and wings, with D. elegans exhibiting male-specific wing spots and D. gunungcola lacking wing spots with intensely dark thoraces and legs. Here, we performed QTL mapping to identify the genetic architecture of these differences. We find a large effect QTL on the X chromosome for all three body parts. QTL on Muller Element E were found for thorax pigmentation in both backcrosses but were only marginally significant in one backcross for the legs and wings. Consistent with this observation, we isolated the effects of the Muller Element E QTL by introgressing D. gunungcola alleles into a D. elegans genetic background and found that D. gunungcola alleles linked near the pigmentation candidate gene ebony caused intense darkening of the thorax, minimal darkening of legs, and minimal shrinking of wing spots. D. elegans ebony mutants showed changes in pigmentation consistent with Ebony having different effects on pigmentation in different tissues. Our results suggest that multiple genes have evolved differential effects on pigmentation levels in different body regions.


Author(s):  
A. V. Khavylo ◽  
◽  
M. S. Sittseva ◽  
I. I. Eremina ◽  
◽  
...  

The article is concerned with the study of satisfaction with a body image as a component of subjective well-being of a person, and the analysis of interconnection of these phenomena. The sampling included 560 people aged from 16 to 42. The study used “the Scale of Satisfaction with Living Standards”, “the Scale of a Positive Affect and a Negative Affect”, “the Scale of Subjective Happiness”, “the Scale of Satisfaction with One’s Own Body”, and “the Body Image Inventory”. The study has revealed that satisfaction with one’s own body and its parts has a positive impact on the level of subjective well-being of men and women; satisfaction with body parts influences dissatisfaction with one’s own body on the whole with varied degree in both groups. There are differences in the connection of individual characteristics with satisfaction with one’s own body and the elements of subjective well-being of men and women.


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