How was Love warms us? Emotional Maps revealed it

We often heard, when we were sad the whole body feels weak and the depressed people also feel chest tightness. How to describe it scientifically? Lauri Nummenmaa, a Finnish psychologist from Aalto University with his colleagues were conducted a survey of 700 people from Finland, Sweden, and Taiwan.

Surveys were done fairly interesting because it involves a large population of respondents and from various backgrounds. Researchers presenting a series of words, stories, videos, and images that can trigger a variety of feelings, ranging sad, depressed, happy, to love. Respondents were also faced with two body image on a computer screen. Body image was then used to illustrate the physiological effects of respondents emotion.

Body locations where research participants felt basic emotions (top row) and more complex ones (bottom row). Hot colors show regions that people say are stimulated during the emotion. Cool colors indicate deactivated areas. (Picture from: http://www.extremetech.com/)

After seeing and reading the images and stories, respondents were asked to describe body parts that have increased and decreased activity in each image. The results showed that when respondents feel love, they feel the whole body is more active, and more warm.

This interesting diagram shows the participants’ emotional responses (colored lines) to stories that were intentionally tailored to elicit that emotion. The target emotion is shown on the perimeter. You can see that angry stories also made people sad and disgusted, but happy stories only elicited happiness. (Picture from: http://www.extremetech.com/)

Meanwhile, in the research that published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science journal, when they were feeling angry, the respondents felt the increased activity in the head and chest. Contrary to love, depression reduces the activity in all parts of the body. Sadness increases the activity of the chest.

Although not scientifically sound, because just look at the responses of respondents subjectively and there is no measurement of the biological activity of the body's improvement, this study considered scientific enough. With a large number of respondents, as reported by Extreme Tech, on Tuesday, December 31, 2013, this research presents the results of quantitative research is valid. In the future researchers hope that, the research results can be used in the therapy to help people with depression or another specific problems. *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | EXTREME TECH | EARTH SKY]

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