Assessment of Affective Valence and Intensity when Interpreting Nonverbal Emotional Expressive Behaviour

The focus of this study is the evaluation of the accuracy of human interpretation of nonverbal emotional expressive behavior of other persons by means of an online questionnaire. The research results obtained suggest that determinants such as the age, gender and mood of the evaluated individuals influence the accuracy of their interpretation of emotions. It became apparent that there are, in some cases, gender differences in the interpretation of basic emotions and affective valence. The results show that women therefore recognise basic emotions and negative facial expressions far more accurately than male participants. These in turn are significantly better at decoding negative body postures. For the age determinant, too, varying results with regard to interpretation accuracy especially of negative emotions were found. The oldest participant group for the sample had significantly greater difficulty in recognising the emotion sadness than the other age groups. Analysis of the data also points to differences in interpretation accuracy depending on the form of expression presented. The results indicate that determinants related to the form of presentation, such as the display of emotions through the various components of expression – facial expressions, gestures, body posture – influence interpretation accuracy. In the study, facial expressions proved to be not diagnostic for decoding the affective valence of intense displays of emotion. The forms of expression body posture and overall body language, however, showed a higher decoding accuracy of affective valence.