A psychophysiologist studies relations between physiological activity and cognition, emotion or behavior. Skin conductance, for example, provides an electrical measurement related to sweat-gland activity, rather than a direct reading of a specific emotion. Combining a physiological channel with experimental manipulation and behavioral measures helps distinguish an observed bodily response from the psychological process proposed to explain it. [ref]
Ulf Dimberg investigated responses to emotional faces using facial electromyography. Measuring activity in selected facial muscles can reveal small reactions that are difficult to judge by ordinary observation. His brief-presentation work examined reactions under conditions intended to limit awareness of the expression, distinguishing the muscle measurement from a participant’s report of what was seen. A congruent facial response does not by itself identify the complete emotional experience. [ref]
Unconscious facial reactions to emotional facial expressions by Ulf Dimberg and others. 2000, expression presentation and facial-EMG measurements
Erika H. Siegel studied variability in physiological responses during emotion. Her meta-analysis evaluated whether emotion categories exhibit consistent autonomic fingerprints across studies and induction conditions. This asks how strongly a category predicts a pattern of bodily measurements, rather than treating one physiological channel as a direct label for an emotion. Variation within a category is therefore part of the evidence a theory must explain. [ref]
Emotion fingerprints or emotion populations by Erika H. Siegel and others. 2018, meta-analytic comparison of autonomic responses and variability
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