Oliveira, G. S. | Search bioRxiv

bioRxiv2026

Negative emotional visual stimuli alter specific improvised dance biomechanics in professional dancers

Dance is a core form of human-environment interaction and a powerful medium for emotional expression, yet dancers are routinely exposed to environmental affective cues that may shape their movement. We tested whether a negative emotional context induced immediately before improvisation alters dance biomechanics. Twenty professional dancers performed two 3-min improvised dances. Between dances, they viewed either Neutral or Negatively valenced pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS; 2 min 40 s, 5 s per image). Eye tracking verified attention to the visual stream. Mood was assessed at four time points (PT1-PT4) using the Brazilian Mood Scale (BRAMS), and full-body, three-dimensional kinematics were captured at 300 Hz using a 9-camera optoelectronic system (Qualisys) and processed to measure global movement amplitude and expansion. Negative IAPS exposure increased tension, depression, fatigue, and decreased vigor from PT2 to PT3. Biomechanically, the Negative Stimulus dancers showed a significant reduction in global movement amplitude after negative IAPS exposure, with reduced movement amplitude of the body extremities. In contrast, global movement expansion remained unchanged; that is, the extremities were not positioned closer or farther from the pelvis. Neutral images produced no mood change and no measurable modulation of movement amplitude or expansion. Together, these results support the hypothesis that improvised dance carries biomechanical signatures of the dancers current affective state, beyond the intended expressive content, and provide an automated motion-capture workflow for studying emotion-movement coupling in spontaneous dance. HighlightsNegative visual context shifted dancers mood toward negative affect Negative images reduced movement amplitude in improvised dance Movement expansion remained stable despite mood induction Graphical Abstract O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=113 SRC="FIGDIR/small/711707v2_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (18K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@dabb85org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@4d2ebdorg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@137bb12org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1dadaf7_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2023

Human Brain Dynamics Dissociate Early Perceptual and Late Motor-Related Stages of Affordance Processing

Affordances, the opportunity for action offered by the environment to an agent, are vital for meaningful behavior and exist in every interaction with the environment. There is an ongoing debate in the field about whether the perception of affordances is an automated process. Some studies suggest that affordance perception is an automated process that is independent from the visual context and bodily interaction with the environment, while others argue that it is modulated by the visual and motor context in which affordances are perceived. The present paper aims to resolve this debate by examining affordance automaticity from the perspective of sensorimotor time windows. We replicated a previous study on affordance perception in which participants actively moved through doors of different width in immersive 3D virtual environments. To investigate the impact of different forms of bodily interactions with an environment, i.e., the movement context (physical vs. joystick movement), we used the identical virtual environment from Djebbara and colleagues (2019) but displayed it on a 2D screen with participants moving through different wide doors using the keys on a standard keyboard. We compared components of the event-related potential (ERP) from the continuously recorded electroencephalogram (EEG) that were previously reported to be related to affordance perception of architectural transitions (passable and impassable doors). Comparing early sensory and later motor-related ERPs, our study replicated ERPs reflecting early affordance perception but found differences in later motor-related components. These results indicate a shift from automated perception of affordances during early sensorimotor time windows to movement context dependence of affordance perception at later stages suggesting that affordance perception is a dynamic and flexible process that changes over sensorimotor stages.

neuroscience↗