Finland reveals emotions body mapping
Finland reveals emotions body mapping © Aalto University

Finland reveals emotions body mapping

Researchers at Aalto University in Finland have revealed how emotions are experienced in the body. It shows how emotions are literally experienced through the body.

Emotions adjust our mental and bodily states to cope with challenges detected in the environment. These sensations arising from bodily changes are an important feature of our emotional experiences. For example, anxiety may be experienced as pain in the chest, while falling in love may trigger warm, pleasurable sensations all over the body.

The researchers found that the most common emotions trigger strong bodily sensations, and the bodily maps of these sensations were topographically different for different emotions. The sensation patterns were, however, consistent across different Western European and Far East cultures, highlighting that emotions and their corresponding bodily sensation patterns have a biological basis.

Aalto University assistant professor Lauri Nummenmaa said: “Emotions adjust not only our mental, but also our bodily states. This way they prepare us to react swiftly to the dangers, but also to the opportunities such as pleasurable social interactions present in the environment. Awareness of the corresponding bodily changes may subsequently trigger the conscious emotional sensations, such as the feeling of happiness.”

He added: “The findings have major implications for our understanding of the functions of emotions and their bodily basis. On the other hand, the results help us to understand different emotional disorders and provide novel tools for their diagnosis.”

The research was carried out online, with over 700 individuals from Finland, Sweden and Taiwan taking part. The researchers induced different emotional states in their Finnish and Taiwanese participants. Subsequently the participants were shown with pictures of human bodies on a computer and asked to colour the bodily regions whose activity they felt increasing or decreasing.

The research was funded by European Research Council, The Academy of Finland and Aalto University. The results were published in the scientific journal Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences.