Do infant body movements reflect emotional states? Evidence from two pilot studies

Although theories support the idea that infants' body movements convey emotional information, little research has examined how adults use these movements as cues to emotional states, and the available empirical findings remain limited and inconsistent. Two experiments were conducted with mothers and students in psychomotor therapy to investigate whether adults can infer infants' emotional states solely from their body movements.

Using videos of 4-month-old infants that presented either unedited footage or isolated facial, vocal, or body movement cues, we asked participants (N = 44 mothers; N = 40 students) to assess the infants' emotional valence, intensity, and their confidence in these assessments.

The results indicated that both mothers and students were able to identify emotional valence in the body-movement - only condition, although not across all videos. Moreover, ratings of intensity and certainty were lower in the body-movement - only condition than in the other conditions.

These findings suggest that body movements can convey key information about infants' emotional valence for both parents and non-parent adults. Further research is required to identify the specific movement features that convey this information and to understand why they are so difficult to extract.