Expanding Simulation Models of Emotional Understanding: The Case for Different Modalities, Body-State Simulation Prominence, and Developmental Trajectories

Recent models of emotion recognition suggest that when people perceive an emotional expression, they partially activate the respective emotion in themselves, providing a basis for the recognition of that emotion. Much of the focus of these models and of their evidential basis has been on sensorimotor simulation as a basis for facial expression recognition – the idea, in short, that coming to know what another feels involves simulating in your brain the motor plans and associated sensory representations engaged by the other person’s brain in producing the facial expression that you see. In this review article, we argue that simulation accounts of emotion recognition would benefit from three key extensions. First, that fuller consideration be given to simulation of bodily and vocal expressions, given that the body and voice are also important expressive channels for providing cues to another’s emotional state. Second, that simulation of other aspects of the perceived emotional state, such as changes in the autonomic nervous system and viscera, might have a more prominent role in underpinning emotion recognition than is typically proposed. Sensorimotor simulation models tend to relegate such body-state simulation to a subsidiary role, despite the plausibility of body-state simulation being able to underpin emotion recognition in the absence of typical sensorimotor simulation. Third, that simulation models of emotion recognition be extended to address how embodied processes and emotion recognition abilities develop through the lifespan. It is not currently clear how this system of sensorimotor and body-state simulation develops and in particular how this affects the development of emotion recognition ability. We review recent findings from the emotional body recognition literature and integrate recent evidence regarding the development of mimicry and interoception to significantly expand simulation models of emotion recognition.