How you walk can reveal your emotional state to others, with the swing of arms and legs being particularly telling, according to a new study. Researchers found that larger swings are associated with anger, while smaller swings indicate sadness or fear.
The study, published in Royal Society Open Science, involved actors walking while recalling emotions such as anger, happiness, fear, or sadness. Volunteers then watched point-light videos of the walks, which masked facial expressions, and correctly identified the emotions at above-chance levels.
In a second experiment, researchers manipulated gait videos to exaggerate or reduce arm and leg swings. Observers perceived exaggerated swings as aggressive and reduced swings as sad or fearful, confirming the importance of these movements.
Lead author Mina Wakabayashi of the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International in Kyoto said: 'Walking is one of the most familiar whole-body movements. Changes in emotional state may naturally appear in the way we walk.' She added that the ability to infer emotions from body movement could aid social interactions.
Potential applications include identifying vulnerable or threatening individuals in CCTV footage and developing wearable devices to monitor mental states. A separate study in Texas used machine learning to predict emotions from gait, though with limited accuracy, suggesting gait may be harder to fake than speech or facial expressions.
