The utility of the emBODY tool as a novel method of studying complex phenomena-related emotions

Abstract

Bodily sensations are one of the major building blocks of emotional experience. However, people differ in their ability to recognise and name their emotions, especially those in response to complex phenomena such as climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, we investigated whether the bodily sensation maps (BSMs) approach can be employed to study emotions related to phenomena that are likely to evoke various, and perhaps even conflicting, emotions in people. Using a unique topographical self-report method-the previously established emBODY tool, 548 participants marked where in the body they feel sensations (activations and deactivations) when they experience distinct emotions (e.g. happiness) and when they think about different phenomena, namely climate change, COVID-19 pandemic, war, nature, friends, and summer holidays. We revealed maps of bodily sensations associated with different emotions and phenomena. Importantly, each phenomenon was related to a statistically unique BSM, suggesting that participants were able to differentiate between feelings associated with distinct phenomena. Yet, we also found that BSMs of phenomena showed some similarity with maps of emotions. Together, these findings indicate that the emBODY tool might be useful in uncovering the range of emotions individuals experience towards complex phenomena.

Figure 1

emBODY tool. (A) Representation of a single trial showing individual activations and deactivation maps for Anger. (B) The subject-wise analysis involves merging individual activation and deactivation maps into a single image and smoothing. Images preprocessed that way undergo visual inspection. (C) Finally, individual images are subjected to a one-sample t-test to produce group-level maps. These maps are used in subsequent analyses.

Figure 2

Demographic information about the study sample (N = 548) included in the final analyses.

Figure 3

Histograms showing the distribution of responses to the climate change (top row) and COVID-19 (bottom row) related questions. For comparison purposes, the histograms are organised in such a way that corresponding questions related to climate change and COVID-19 are presented in the same column. The questions were rated on a Likert scale from 1 = I strongly disagree to 5 = I strongly agree. For the exact questions’ text, see Table 1.

Figure 4

Bodily topography of basic (Upper) and complex (Middle) emotions and sensations related to phenomena (Lower). The body maps show regions whose activation increased (warm colours) or decreased (cool colours) when feeling each emotion or thinking of each phenomenon (p < 0.05 FDR corrected; t > 2.95). The colour bar indicates the t-statistic range.

Figure 5

The similarity between each pair of emotions and phenomena (Spearman’s correlation). Each cell in the matrix represents a pairwise correlation coefficient between two body sensation maps. The colour bar indicates the r-statistic range.

Figure 6

The similarity (Spearman’s correlation coefficient) between the BSMs of corresponding emotions in the current and previous study.

Figure 7

Confusion matrix between predicted and true classifications. White spaces represent classifications below chance level (5%).