Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

What is a Sensory System?01:31

What is a Sensory System?

100.9K
Sensory systems detect stimuli—such as light and sound waves—and transduce them into neural signals that can be interpreted by the nervous system. In addition to external stimuli detected by the senses, some sensory systems detect internal stimuli—such as the proprioceptors in muscles and tendons that send feedback about limb position.
100.9K
Optimal Arousal Theory01:23

Optimal Arousal Theory

797
The optimal arousal theory suggests that performance is maximized when an individual experiences a moderate level of arousal. This theory is closely tied to the Yerkes-Dodson law, which illustrates an inverted U-shaped relationship between arousal and performance. The law, formulated by psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dodson, implies an ideal arousal level for optimal performance, and deviations from this level can lead to declines in effectiveness.
Inverted U-Shaped Performance Curve
The...
797
lncRNA - Long Non-coding RNAs02:39

lncRNA - Long Non-coding RNAs

9.8K
In humans, more than 80% of the genome gets transcribed. However, only around 2% of the genome codes for proteins. The remaining part produces non-coding RNAs which includes ribosomal RNAs, transfer RNAs, telomerase RNAs, and regulatory RNAs, among other types. A large number of regulatory non-coding RNAs have been classified into two groups depending upon their length – small non-coding RNAs, such as microRNA, which are less than 200 nucleotides in length, and long non-coding RNA...
9.8K
lncRNA - Long Non-coding RNAs02:39

lncRNA - Long Non-coding RNAs

3.6K
3.6K
Physiology of Emotion01:20

Physiology of Emotion

3.2K
The physiology of emotions is a multifaceted process involving the autonomic nervous system, brain structures, hormones, and neurotransmitters. This intricate interplay dictates how emotions manifest in the body and influence behavior.
Autonomic Nervous System
The autonomic nervous system (ANS) plays a critical role in emotional responses by regulating involuntary physiological functions. It consists of two main components: the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. The sympathetic system...
3.2K
Emotional Expression01:26

Emotional Expression

981
Emotional expression encompasses how individuals convey their emotions through verbal communication and non-verbal cues. These non-verbal actions include facial expressions, body language, and physical gestures, such as frowning or smiling. Among these, facial expressions play a crucial role in emotional expression and are understood universally, indicating a biological basis for how humans communicate emotions.
Universal Facial Expressions
Psychologist Paul Ekman identified seven basic...
981

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Providing routine digital recordings of clinic visits to patients: a multiple-case study of three settings in the U.S.

JAMIA open·2026
Same author

The case against efficiency: friction in social media.

Npj complexity·2026
Same author

Neural similarity predicts whether strangers become friends.

Nature human behaviour·2025
Same author

Reply to Izuma and Kakinuma: Conversation aligns self-views above and beyond noise reduction.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2025
Same author

Self-views converge during enjoyable conversations.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2024
Same author

Consensus-building conversation leads to neural alignment.

Nature communications·2024

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jan 22, 2026

Brain Imaging Investigation of the Memory-Enhancing Effect of Emotion
15:57

Brain Imaging Investigation of the Memory-Enhancing Effect of Emotion

Published on: May 4, 2011

17.2K

A multi-sensory code for emotional arousal.

Beau Sievers1, Caitlyn Lee2, William Haslett3

  • 11 Department of Psychology, Harvard University , Cambridge, MA 02138 , USA.

Proceedings. Biological Sciences
|July 11, 2019
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Humans use a universal multi-sensory code to express and understand emotional arousal. This code, based on spectral centroid variations, is evident in voice, movement, art, and music, facilitating efficient emotional communication.

Keywords:
arousalcross-modalemotionspectral centroidsupramodal

More Related Videos

Examining Changes in HRV and Emotion Following Artmaking with Three Different Art Materials
06:24

Examining Changes in HRV and Emotion Following Artmaking with Three Different Art Materials

Published on: January 11, 2020

6.7K
Quadruple Immunostaining of the Olfactory Bulb for Visualization of Olfactory Sensory Axon Molecular Identity Codes
06:32

Quadruple Immunostaining of the Olfactory Bulb for Visualization of Olfactory Sensory Axon Molecular Identity Codes

Published on: June 5, 2017

7.6K

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jan 22, 2026

Brain Imaging Investigation of the Memory-Enhancing Effect of Emotion
15:57

Brain Imaging Investigation of the Memory-Enhancing Effect of Emotion

Published on: May 4, 2011

17.2K
Examining Changes in HRV and Emotion Following Artmaking with Three Different Art Materials
06:24

Examining Changes in HRV and Emotion Following Artmaking with Three Different Art Materials

Published on: January 11, 2020

6.7K
Quadruple Immunostaining of the Olfactory Bulb for Visualization of Olfactory Sensory Axon Molecular Identity Codes
06:32

Quadruple Immunostaining of the Olfactory Bulb for Visualization of Olfactory Sensory Axon Molecular Identity Codes

Published on: June 5, 2017

7.6K

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Science
  • Psychology
  • Acoustics
  • Art Theory

Background:

  • Human emotional expression manifests across diverse modalities including vocalizations, facial expressions, body movements, and abstract forms like art, music, and architecture.
  • Intuitive links between the structural characteristics of these expressions and their emotional meaning are often observed, such as flowing script for romance and sharp forms for aggression.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the underlying mechanism for the universal understanding of emotional expressions across different sensory modalities.
  • To identify a common signaling code used by senders and receivers to convey and interpret emotional arousal.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of the spectral centroid, a measure of the central tendency of a stimulus's frequency spectrum, across various sensory outputs.
  • Empirical testing of how variations in spectral centroid correlate with emotional arousal signals in sounds, shapes, speech, and human body movements.

Main Results:

  • Demonstration that spectral centroid variation serves as a consistent multi-sensory code for signaling and judging emotional arousal.
  • Evidence that this code is applied across auditory, visual (shapes, art), linguistic (speech), and kinesthetic (body movement) domains.
  • Confirmation of the code's role in enabling efficient estimation of an agent's emotional arousal level.

Conclusions:

  • Emotional arousal is communicated through a shared, cross-modal spectral centroid code.
  • This finding provides a unified explanation for how humans intuitively understand emotional valence across diverse forms of expression.
  • The spectral centroid offers a quantifiable basis for emotional signaling and perception in humans.