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Celebration & Contemplation, 10th International Conference on Design & Emotion 27 鈥� 30 September 2016, Amsterdam
Introduction
Emotions are embodied. When people experience
emotions, changes may occur in the activation of the
autonomic nervous system, hormones may be released
and facial or bodily muscles may contract (see for an
overview Mauss & Robinson, 2009). These bodily
sensations become part of people鈥檚 personal beliefs or
concepts about what emotions are and how emotions
affect people (see Oosterwijk & Barrett, 2014;
Oosterwijk, Mackey, Wilson-Mendenhall, Winkielman,
& Paulus, 2015).
Even though the link between emotions and the body
is well-established (Barrett, 2012; Damasio, 1999;
Craig, 2008), it is debated whether the representation
of emotions in the body is stable across people (i.e.,
the universal or 鈥渂asic鈥� emotion view; see Ekman,
1992; Nummenmaa, Glerean, Hari, & Hietanen, 2014)
or whether there is meaningful variation in how
people represent emotions in their body (i.e., a
constructionist view of emotion; see Barrett, 2009;
2012). One way to test these opposing ideas is to map
where people feel emotions in their body and to
examine differences and commonalities.
The present paper describes a collaboration between a
visual designer and two emotion scientists interested
in the embodiment of emotion. The visual designer
developed a survey method to explore in a qualitative
fashion where people felt emotions in their body. This
survey method was subsequently implemented in a
quantitative study to test differences and
commonalities in where people felt emotions in their
body. The present paper presents these results to
forward new insights into the individual differences of
body-emotion associations, but also to show, as a
proof of principle, that experimental design projects
can be applied in a scientific context.
The Emotionally}Vague project
In the project Emotionally}Vague (O鈥橞rien, 2007; http://
www.emotionallyvague.com) the focus was to
qualitatively explore the question: 鈥淒o people feel
emotions in their bodies?鈥�. The project involved the
development of an original method in which
participants were asked to draw on a paper body
outline where or how they felt anger, joy, fear, sadness
and love. The test phase included texture use, value,
space selection, and alternative media such as
stickers. The final survey had three variations of body
map questions: fully open, 鈥渙ne spot only鈥� and arrows
to indicate direction. A sample of 250 people was
gathered which included 38 nationalities with ages
ranging from 6 to 75 years old.
To aggregate the results, each drawing was scanned.
Then, the body outline was stripped away and all
drawings were layered in Adobe Photoshop. The
opacities were reduced to 15% in order to allow for the
鈥榦nion-skin鈥� effect. This allowed for the highest and
lowest densities of aggregated locations to be
revealed. Figure 1, 2 and 3 demonstrate the results for
the fully open questions, 鈥渙ne-spot only鈥� questions and
the directional questions, respectively. For the
Abstract The present paper presents the results of a collaborative
project between an artist and two scientists interested in the
embodiment of emotion. In the qualitative Emotionally}Vague
project participants were asked to draw on a body outline where or
how they felt anger, joy, fear, sadness and love. Inspired by the
results of the Emotionally}Vague project, a quantitative study was
performed to further examine people鈥檚 body-emotion associations.
For twenty-one emotions participants could choose a location and a
possible second location on a body outline to indicate were they felt
that emotion. The results demonstrated that emotions differed in
where in the body they were felt. Notably, pride, anger, contempt and
curiosity were associated with higher positions in the body as
compared to pleasure, fear, guilt and disgust. Furthermore, as
expected, there was individual variation in body-emotion
associations. For all emotions, there was a sub-set of people that
reported a body-emotion association not mentioned by another
subset of people. These results support a view that emphasizes
individual variability in the embodiment of emotional experience.
Both scientific and practical applications of the task used to collect
this data are discussed.
Keywords Emotion, Bodily states, Embodiment, Visual design
Where do people feel emotions
in their body? A quantitative
implementation of the
Emotionally}Vague project- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Orlagh O鈥橞rien1
hello@orlaghobrien.com
Suzanne Oosterwijk2
s.oosterwijk@uva.nl
Lisa F. Barrett3
l.barrett@neu.edu
1
Design for Wellbeing,
Ireland
2
University of
Amsterdam, the
Netherlands
3
Northeastern University,
United States of America

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Figure 1. Original representation of the results from the Emotionally}Vague project (Fully-open responses).
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Figure 2. Original representation of the results from the Emotionally}Vague project (鈥淥ne spot only 鈥� responses).
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Figure 3. Original representation of the results from the Emotionally}Vague project (Directional responses).

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using Qualtrics. Participants were presented with
twenty-one emotions each combined with the outline
of a body. For the full set of emotions, please see
Figure 4. For each emotion participants were asked to
choose one location that represented were they felt
that emotion the most. When the participants clicked
on the body outline a pointer appeared that could be
moved around to find the location that best
represented where they felt an emotion (first reported
y-coordinate). The location was saved as an
x-coordinate and a y-coordinate. After they entered the
location where they felt the emotion the most, they
could enter another location on the body outline
(alternative y-coordinate). It was emphasised that
there were no right or wrong answers. After finishing
the body task, the participants filled in three
questionnaires that will not be discussed further in
this paper. Finally, participants were asked for their
gender, age and ethnic background.
Analyses
We analysed differences between the first reported
y-coordinate for the twenty-one emotion categories
with a repeated measures ANOVA. Because many
participants did not report a second location, this
analysis was not performed for the alternative
y-coordinate. An analysis of the x-coordinate did not
demonstrate consistent results and is not discussed in
this paper. To examine individual differences, each
first reported y-coordinate and alternative
y-coordinate was categorised as belonging to the head,
one-spot only questions undeniable patterns were
revealed, despite many participants adding many more
spots. The directional question revealed how the
experience of emotion was one of a shifting pattern
where movement was integral to the experience. Anger
was represented mainly in head and chest and moved
outwards from the head; joy emanated from the chest
and filled the whole body; fear moved inwards to the
abdomen; sadness had a downward direction and love
was an all-body experience moving outward.
A quantitative implementation of the
Emotionally}Vague project
In an online study, the body outline from the
Emotionally}Vague project was used to explore
body-emotion associations for twenty-one emotions
often studied in emotion and affective science.
Method
Participants
One-hundred-and-sixty subjects (92 females; Mean age
= 31.5 years) participated in an online study called
鈥淒rawing Emotion鈥� for a small financial reward. The
study was approved by the relevant Institutional
Review Board, and all participants gave informed
consent prior to starting the study.
Task
The task was presented on the website Mechanical
Turk and programmed as an online questionnaire
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Figure 4. Overview of first locations for each discrete emotion category.

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in the body. For all emotions, there is a sub-set of
people that reports a body-emotion association that is
not mentioned by another subset of people. For
example, some participants felt disgust,
disappointment and embarrassment only in the head
(22%, 19% and 30% respectively); whereas other
participants felt these same emotions only in the belly
(27%, 16% and 17% respectively). Even though many
emotions demonstrated variety in body-emotion
associations, other emotions were relatively strongly
associated with particular areas of the body. For
example, 75% or more of the participants mentioned
only the chest, or a head-chest or belly-chest
combination for joy, happiness, love and pride.
In terms of demographics, the results demonstrated
that adults younger than 40 reported a lower mean
y-coordinate across all emotions as compared to
adults of 40 years and older, F(1, 151) = 6.41, p < .05, 畏虏p
= .04 (M = 117.23 vs. M = 102.56). Furthermore, younger
adults felt a larger number of emotions only in their
belly than older adults, F(1, 158) = 9.51, p < .01. We
found no effect of the gender of participants when
analysing the first reported y-coordinate. Nevertheless,
when analysing the combined variables, we found that
males felt a larger number of emotions only in their
head, F(1, 158) = 4.28, p < .05, whereas females felt a
larger number of emotions in the chest-belly region,
F(1, 158) = 4.05, p < .05.
Discussion
The present paper presents the results of a
collaborative project between an artist and two
chest or belly (and lower) area of the body. Based on
these variables we categorised the y-coordinate(s) for
each emotion as felt only in the head, chest or body
(i.e., no alternative y-coordinate was given) or as felt in
the head-chest, head-belly or chest-belly. We also
created a variable that reported the total number of
emotions felt only in the head, chest and belly, or in
the head-chest; head-belly and chest-belly.
Results
An analysis of the main y-coordinate demonstrated
that emotions were associated with relative different
positions in the body along the y-axis, F(20, 3040) =
17.63, p < .001, 畏虏p
= .10, 蔚 = .73. In particular, pride,
anger, contempt and curiosity were associated with
higher positions in the body (i.e., more towards the
head), whereas pleasure, fear, guilt and disgust were
associated with lower positions in the body (i.e., more
towards the belly). See Table 1 for an overview of all
paired comparisons. In general, positive emotions
were felt more often in the chest than negative
emotions, t(157) = 9.29; p < .0001, whereas negative
emotions were felt more often in the head, t(157) =
-3.29; p < .001, and belly, t(157) = -5.99; p < .0001, than
positive emotions.
On average, participants filled in an alternative
y-coordinate for 13.7 out of 21 emotions. This
alternative location was combined with the first
reported location to map individual differences in
body-emotion associations. Figure 5 clearly
demonstrates that participants vary in their
associations between emotion categories and locations
Mean Y pl fe gu di Re ex lo di sh pi sa je jo ha em ha su pr an co cu
pleasure 161
fear 145
guilt 145
disgust 138
relaxation 138
excitement 131
love 128
disappoint. 128
shame 113
pity 113
sadness 111
jealousy 106
joy 104
hate 102
embarras. 102
happiness 102
surprise 101
pride 93
anger 92
contempt 91
curiosity 53
Note: The first column reports the averaged first reported y-coordinate for each emotion category. The coloured columns represent Bonferroni
corrected pairwise comparisons between emotion categories.Yellow cells represent p < .05; orange cells represent p < .01; red cells represent p
< .001. Grey cells indicate that the mean y-coordinate did not differ between emotion categories.
Table 1. Comparisons between averaged y-coordinate for each emotion category.
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suggestion that older adults lose sensitivity for the
physiological condition of their body (Mendes, 2010).
In terms of future research, it would be relevant to
explore whether the body task can indicate trait
differences (i.e., stable individual differences in
associations between emotions and the body) and
state differences (i.e., situationally dependent
variation in associations between emotions and the
body) in body-emotion associations. Moreover, future
research should examine to what extent the
associations that people report reflect measurable
physiological sensations, outward bodily expressions
or symbolic/metaphoric associations (K枚vecses, 2003).
In addition, it is an open question what people
represent when they choose a location in the head. Do
these locations represent a sensation (i.e., a feeling in
the throat, see disgust), a behaviour (i.e., smiling, see
joy and happiness) or a cognitive representation of an
emotion (i.e., angry thoughts, or a mental state of
curiosity)? A qualitative approach that asks people
explicitly what they portray when choosing a body
location may shed more light on these questions.
The results from the present project also have
important practical applications. For example, the
body task could be used to map people鈥檚 bodily
sensations in a medical setting. It could facilitate
non-verbal or distance dialogue between patient and
therapist/doctor or as an alternative evaluative
module in questionnaires such as for stroke
rehabilitation or chronic pain. It could also be a tool
for mindfulness and self-monitoring (e.g., a visual
mood diary). Furthermore, it may have applications in
commercial qualitative market research, as well as a
tool for improving HR feedback and engagement. And
finally, there are exciting possibilities for the
collection of real-time, global responses through a
future digital web version, leading to data
visualisations on a mass scale. These visualisations
scientists interested in the embodiment of emotion.
The qualitative Emotionally}Vague project forwarded
interesting visual displays of where people felt anger,
joy, fear, sadness and love in their body. This inspired
a quantitative, online study into people鈥檚 body-
emotion associations. The findings of this study extend
work by Nummenmaa and colleagues (2014) that used
a similar method. In those studies the prime aim was
to examine aggregated data, whereas the present
quantitative study zoomed in on individual variation.
Although the present data forwards similar
aggregated patterns in the body across emotion
categories as Nummenmaa and colleagues, the present
data also supports the idea of individual variation in
body-emotion associations. Indeed, our analyses show
that different people felt the same emotion in different
parts of their body (e.g., some people felt disgust,
disappointment or embarrassment only in the head
whereas others felt these emotions only in the belly).
In addition, the present data expands the current
knowledge on body-emotions associations by adding a
set of emotions that have not been studied before (i.e.,
pleasure, relaxation, excitement, joy, curiosity,
disappointment, embarrassment, pity, jealousy, hate,
and guilt).
The results from the present project have several
scientific implications. First of all, the present data
demonstrates not only that emotions differ in where
in the body they are felt, but also that people differ in
where in their body they feel emotions. This latter
finding is consistent with views that emphasise
individual variability in emotional experience (Barrett,
2009), embodiment (Oosterwijk & Barrett, 2014) and
sensitivity to bodily signals (Herbert & Pollatos, 2012).
The present data also sheds some new light on the
relationship between body-emotion associations and
demographics. For example, the finding that older
adults associate emotions to a lesser extent with the
lower parts of their body, is consistent with the
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Figure 5. Overview of combined first reported and alternative y-coordinate, categorised into head, chest and belly area.
Note: From top to bottom, each
coloured part of a column
represents the relative
proportion of participants
reporting: a location in head
area and no alternative location
(head; light blue); a location in
the head and chest area (head &
chest; dark blue); a location in
chest area and no alternative
location (chest; green); a location
in the head and belly area (head
& belly; yellow); a location in the
chest and belly area (chest &
belly; orange); and a location in
belly area and no alternative
location (belly; red).

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may be interesting as an art piece created by audience
inputs, for example as an interactive component of
theater, dance or music performances.
In closing, the findings from the present project have
potential scientific and practical use. With this, the
present project illustrates the importance of
interdisciplinary collaborations between psychology
and the field of arts and design and demonstrates that
such collaborations can be both inspiring and fruitful.
References
Barrett, L. F. (2012). Emotions are real. Emotion, 12,
413-429.
Barrett, L.F. (2009). Variety is the spice of life: A
psychological construction approach to understanding
variability in emotion. Cognition and Emotion, 23,
1284-1306.
Craig, A. D. (2003). Interoception: the sense of the
physiological condition of the body. Current Opinion
in Neurobiology, 13(4), 500-505.
Damasio, A., & Dolan, R. J. (1999). The feeling of what
happens. Nature, 401, 847-847.
Ekman, P. (1992). An argument for basic emotions.
Cognition & Emotion, 6, 169-200.
Herbert, B. M., & Pollatos, O. (2012). The body in the
mind: on the relationship between interoception and
embodiment. Topics in Cognitive Science, 4, 692-704.
K枚vecses, Z. (2003). Metaphor and emotion: Language,
culture, and body in human feeling. Cambridge
University Press.
Mauss, I. B., & Robinson, M. D. (2009). Measures of
emotion: A review. Cognition and Emotion, 23,
209-237.
Mendes, W. B. (2010). Weakened links between mind
and body in older age: The case for maturational
dualism in the experience of emotion. Emotion Review,
2, 240-244.
Nummenmaa, L., Glerean, E., Hari, R., & Hietanen, J. K.
(2014). Bodily maps of emotions. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, 111, 646-651.
O鈥橞rien, O. (2007). http://www.emotionallyvague.com.
Oosterwijk, S., & Barrett, L.F. (2014). Embodiment in
the construction of emotion experience and emotion
understanding. In: L. Shapiro (Ed.), Routledge
Handbook of Embodied Cognition (pp. 250-260). New
York: Routledge.
Oosterwijk, S., Mackey, S., Winkielman, P., Wilson-
Mendenhall, C., & Paulus, M.P. (2015). Concepts in
context: processing mental state concepts with
internal or external focus involves different neural
systems. Social Neuroscience, 10, 294-307.

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