I Can See What You Are Feeling, but Can I Feel It? Physiological Linkage while Viewing Communication of Emotion via Touch

Past research has demonstrated that emotions can accurately be communicated via touch (e.g., Hertenstein, Keltner, App, Bulleit, and Jaskolka, 2006). In stranger female dyads, physiological linkage plays a role in the mechanism whereby this successful communication occurs, as touch strengthens and lengthens linkage (Kissel, 2020). While touch has a direct impact on physiological processes, viewing touch may have similar effects. The current study explored this possibility in regard to physiological linkage. Hertenstein et al., 2006 demonstrated that participants can correctly decode emotions from observing videos of communication via touch to the forearm and hand. The current study replicated this finding with forty-seven female participants, while also determining the levels of physiological linkage between the "live" observers and the video-recorded participants from Kissel (2020) using dynamic linear time series modeling. Results showed that physiological linkage can occur between "live" and recorded participants. Participants demonstrated longer linkage times with the initial dyad they viewed, but linkage with videoed communicators whose communications were correctly perceived by their fellow videoed receiver had a larger influence on emotion word, valence, intensity, and quadrant detection accuracy. Based on these results, physiological linkage may influence empathic accuracy in virtual settings.