We’ve all experienced “gut feelings” but a new study out of Sapienza University supports the idea that these feelings could be tied to physiological changes. Researchers in Rome investigated how emotional states such as disgust and fear could affect acidity levels in the gut.

---

The Methodology

Giuseppina Porciello and her team asked 31 men whose average age was 24 to take a pill that measures pH levels in the gut.

The men then watched videos that elicited feelings of disgust, fear, and happiness while the pill sensor travelled down their gastrointestinal tract.

After watching each video, the men completed a questionnaire to rate the intensity of their emotions.

---

The Results

After watching the videos that elicited feelings of disgust and fear, the participant’s stomach pH level wasmore acidic than it was at a baseline measurement.

Those with the most acidic pH reported feeling the most disgusted and fearful. It is unclear whether a particularly acidic stomach heightens these emotions or if experiencing these emotions results in more acidity.

The participants who reported feeling happy, regardless of the video they watched, had a less acidic pH in their stomach.

Porciello and her team are now carrying out a similar study on female participants.

---

The Brain/Gut Connection

This research reinforces models that suggest the gastric network plays a major role in our body’s emotional responses.

As stated by the Harvard Medical School, the gastrointestinal tract is sensitive to emotion. Anger, anxiety, sadness, elation — all of these feelings (and others) can trigger symptoms in the gut.

The brain has a direct effect on the stomach and intestines. For example, the very thought of eating can release the stomach’s juices before food gets there.

Feeling disgust in the pit of your stomach isn’t unusual. In fact, self-reported ‘body maps’ of emotions often associate negative emotions with the gastric system.

It’s not just a mental thing either – recordings of the electrical activity in the gut’s muscular wall also reflect our experiences of revulsion.

Our bodies appear to be driven to ramp up gastric activity when we experience things we ought to stay clear of, evoking a sense of nausea.

---

Universal, Psychological Themes

It’s important to remember that research has demonstrated that, despite many differences (and similarities) in the specific types of events that trigger emotions in us, there are universal, psychological themes associated with each of the seven universal emotions – anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise.

A psychological theme is the basic, most elemental way in which our minds process and evaluate any event in terms of what the event means to us psychologically. These themes are mostly concerned with our welfare.

The fact that there are universal, psychological themes associated with basic emotions means that the same underlying, psychological themes trigger the same emotion in all humans around the world, regardless of differences in race, culture, nationality and any other demographic characteristic.

So what are some quick descriptions of themes for the basic emotions of disgust and fear?

Disgust – Contamination

Disgust is triggered when our minds appraise something that is dirty, rotten, offensive, or contaminated.

 

Fear – Threat

Fear is triggered when our minds appraise something as threatening, or potentially threatening, or sense of self. The sense of self that is threatened can be our physical self as well as our psychological self.

To see the other triggers for universal emotions click here.

The post Disgust and Fear Linked To More Acidity In Stomach first appeared on Humintell.

Most people can discern how their pet cat or dog is feeling by just listening to them- happy kitties purr and angry dogs growl. But can this insight be extended to wild animals like a cow or a pig?

A new study entitled “Age, empathy, familiarity, domestication and call features enhance human perception of animal emotion expressions” from the University of Copenhagen surveyed more than 1000 people from around the world.

They found that most people can pick up on an animal’s excitement, but not necessarily positive or negative emotions.

The Study

Greenall, et al obtained audio recordings of pigs, horses, goats, and cows as well as wild boars and Przewalski’s horses.

According to Science “The recordings were made while the animals were experiencing certain emotions categorized as either positive, such as a horse readying to eat producing a high-pitched neigh, or negative, such as a hungry horse producing a throaty whine. The trial also included sound bites from human actors, who were recorded saying meaningless sounds in either an angry, fearful, or joyful tone.”

Once the recordings were obtained, the researchers sent the audio files and a survey to volunteers who were from 48 different countries and had the option to take the survey in eight different languages, including Italian, Dutch, and Hebrew.

For each question, they compared two short snippets of vocalizations from a particular species and decided which clip represented a high or low arousal and which vocalization represented a positive or negative emotion.

The Results

Survey participants were able to accurately discern arousal in pigs, horses, and goats more than half of the time. The scores for emotional valence were more variable.

The survey takers were able to differentiate positive from negative vocalizations in humans, goats, horses, pigs, and wild boars at an above average clip, but they struggled to discern which emotions were being vocalized by the cows and wild horses.

Males and females didn’t show a difference in the accuracy of their answers. Instead, younger volunteers (aged 20 to 29 being the best, and ability declining with age) and those who had experience working with animals were better at picking up on both arousal and emotional valence.

The study suggests it may have been evolutionarily advantageous for a wide variety of animals to pick up on the emotional cues of other animals’ vocalizations—a long screech, for example, that may signal to multiple species that a predator is nearby.

Relationship to Empathy

A follow up study conducted by ethologist Elodie Briefer found that people who had higher empathy scores were better at identifying animal emotions from sound alone.

Briefer and her team collected used recordings similar to those of the Greenall, et al which were associated with positive experiences, such as an animal anticipating food or being reunited with a friend. Other sounds were made when the animal was afraid, under stress, or socially isolated.

In addition to discerning positive and negative emotions, participants were also asked to complete an empathy questionnaire based on the interpersonal reactivity index.

This index measures four empathetic traits: their tendency to adopt other people’s points of view, feel sympathy for others, experience distress when others are in need, and imagine themselves in fictional situations.

Interestingly, people who scored highly for empathy were better able to understand the meaning of the animal sounds.

This research suggests all us mammals have a shared emotional system.

The post Can Humans Judge Animal Emotions? Yes, to an Extent. first appeared on Humintell.