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The walking sick: Perception of experimental sickness from biological motion
Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology, Stress Research Institute. Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology, Biological psychology. Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-3561-8092
Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology, Stress Research Institute. Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology, Biological psychology. Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-8323-0714
Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology, Stress Research Institute. Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology, Biological psychology. Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-3932-7310
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Number of Authors: 72023 (English)In: Brain, behavior, and immunity, ISSN 0889-1591, E-ISSN 1090-2139, Vol. 113, p. 319-327Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Identification of sick conspecifics allows for avoidance of infectious threats, and is therefore an important behavioral defense against diseases. Here, we investigated if humans can identify sick individuals solely from biological motion and posture (using point-light displays). Additionally, we sought to determine which movements and sickness parameters would predict such detection. We collected video clips and derived point-light displays (one stride presented in a loop) of sick walkers (injected with lipopolysaccharide at 2.0 ng/kg body weight) and the same walkers when healthy (injected with saline). We then presented these displays to two groups, one group classified each walker as sick or healthy (study 1, n = 106), and the other group scored the walkers’ health on a visual analogue scale (study 2, n = 106). The raters were able to identify sick individuals above chance, and rated sick walkers as having worse health, both from observing video clips and point-light displays. Furthermore, both sickness detection and worse apparent health were predicted by inflammation-induced increase in rigidity and slower walking, but not other cues. Altogether, these findings indicate that biological motion can serve as a sickness cue, possibly allowing humans to identify sick conspecifics from a distance, and thereby allowing for disease avoidance.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Elsevier, 2023. Vol. 113, p. 319-327
Keywords [en]
sickness detection, biological motion, point-light displays, lipopolysaccharide, experimental endotoxemia
National Category
Psychology
Research subject
Psychology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-225003DOI: 10.1016/j.bbi.2023.07.020PubMedID: 37517742Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85166948418OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-225003DiVA, id: diva2:1824206
Note

The studies were supported by a grant from the KI research foundation (2018-02347 to J.L). The study from where the stimuli were obtained was supported by the Swedish Research Council (421-2012-1125 to M.J.O), the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences (P12-1017 to M.J.O), and Stockholm Stress Center, a FORTE (Swedish Council for Working life and Social Research) Center of Excellence (2009-1758).

Available from: 2024-01-04 Created: 2024-01-04 Last updated: 2024-01-11Bibliographically approved

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Hansson, Lina S.Lasselin, JulieAxelsson, JohnSundelin, TinaLekander, Mats

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