Head movements play a key role in conveying emotions through speech and music, according to a recent study.
Head motions literally do the ‘talking’, so to speak, if the study is to be believed. While talking, or singing, head motions like nodding, tilting, or even bowing add more force to the verbal messages being conveyed. The study has been carried out by researchers from the Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montreal.
Researchers Steven R. Livingstone and Caroline Palmer from the Department have found that humans are accurate when it comes to judging emotions just based on head movements. Such movements convey emotions even when there is no sound of facial expression.
This finding could help in the development of automated emotion recognition systems or human-interaction robots, according to the researchers. Such robots could come handy in places such as hotel reception desks, or even in interactive care robots for the aged.
Palmer added, “Our discovery may lead to new applications in situations where sound is not available, such as automated recognition of emotional states in crowd behavior or in hearing impairments, by making use of head movements when watching someone talk. It also has applications in computing and robotics, where the addition of expressive head movements may help make humanoid robots more lifelike and approachable.”