Abstract
Fear and anxiety are the most frequently studied emotional states in chemosignal research. Despite differences between these two emotional states, findings from research using fear and anxiety body odors (BOs) are often treated as part of a similar phenomenon. In this article, we examine possible similarities and differences between participants exposed to fear and anxiety BOs on 2 dependent variables commonly used in chemosignals' research: (1) the activation of facial muscles in displays of fear expressions (i.e. the medial frontalis and the corrugator supercilii); and (2) the time required to discriminate between negative emotional expressions (fear, anger, and disgust) and neutral ones. Our results show that fear (vs. rest) and anxiety (vs. exercise) BOs activate the medial frontalis, suggesting that both have a similar impact on receivers' facial muscles. However, we could not replicate previous findings regarding the influence of fear BOs in discriminating negative emotional faces from neutral ones. Two additional replication attempts failed to replicate the earlier results, indicating that the results reported in the literature with this specific paradigm should be interpreted cautiously. Suggestions for future research examining possible differences between fear and anxiety BOs are advanced.
Original language | English |
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Article number | bjad016 |
Pages (from-to) | 1-14 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Chemical Senses |
Volume | 48 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 19 May 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
Funding
GRS and NG were supported by the European Union Horizon 2020 Program [grant agreement no. 824153 of the project “POTION-Promoting Social Interaction through Emotional Body Odors”]. We also gratefully acknowledge funding from the FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, I.P. (UID/04810/2020).
Funders | Funder number |
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European Union Horizon 2020 program | 824153 |
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia | UID/04810/2020 |
Keywords
- anxiety
- body odors
- chemosensory communication
- emotion discrimination
- facial electromyography
- fear