Audience effects in affective imagery: Replication and extension to dysphoric imagery

Subjects imagined situations during which they reported feeling happiness, sadness, anger, or fear, at both low and high levels of imagined sociality. Electromyographic (EMG) activity was recorded from four facial sites overlying the left forehead, brow, cheek, and lip. Controlling for reported emotion, facial EMG activity was influenced by the sociality of the imagery. Results corroborate previous findings of imaginary audience effects on smiling, and extend these effects to imagined situations that elicit dysphoria.This research was supported in part by a University of California Academic Senate grant to the first author. We thank Norman Severe for his assistance in running subjects.