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Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback [apb] pp1257-apbi-489567 August 19, 2004 2:45 Style file version Nov 28th, 2002
Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, Vol. 29, No. 3, September 2004 (
C
2004)
The Effects of Upright and Slumped Postures
on the Recall of Positive and Negative Thoughts
Vietta E. Wilson
1,3
and Erik Peper
2
This study assessed whether it was easier to generate positive and negative thoughts in either
an upright or slumped position. Twenty-four participants, who reported no clinical depres-
sion or anxiety, completed the Tellegen absorption questionnaire and a self-assessment of
imagery ability. Surface electromyography (sEMG) of zygomaticus major, heart rate, and
respiratory rate were assessed across four 1-min counterbalanced conditions of either up-
right or slumped posture and either positive or negative thought generation. Posttrial checks
of compliance were completed. At the end of the study, participants rated which thought
was easiest to generate in the two postures. Significantly more participants (22), or 92%,
indicated it was easiest to generate positive thoughts in the upright position. ANOVA of
sEMG activity significantly distinguished positive and negative thoughts in both positions.
Significant correlation coefficients were observed between scores on the Tellegen scale of
absorption and the ability to generate thoughts quickly and between self-perceptions of im-
agery ability with the maintenance of thoughts across time. This study supports the finding
that positive thoughts are more easily recalled in the upright posture.
KEY WORDS: posture; sEMG; cognition; heart rate; absorption; thoughts.
INTRODUCTION
Students and patients often report that when they stand up tall with their head up it
seems easier to think positively or create positive images or thoughts and when collapsed
it appears easier to access negative images or thoughts. Similarly it has been noted that
depressed people in psychiatric facilities tend to walk in a slumped posture with their head
down. As early as 1947, Lederer-Eckardt, in a psychoanalytical journal, hypothesized a
relationship between posture and mood (Lederer-Eckardt, 1947).
Tangential research contains suggestions regarding aspects of the relationship between
posture and mood. Riskind (1983) manipulated facial expression and posture to determine
if they helped “prime” memory retrieval. He found that positive facial and posture (upright-
expansive) expressions facilitated recall of positive past memories more than negative
1
Department of Kinesiology and Health Science, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
2
Department of Health/Institute for Holistic Health, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California.
3
Address all correspondence to Vietta E. Wilson, Department of Kinesiology and Health Science, York University,
359 Stong College, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3, Canada; e-mail: vwilson@yorku.ca.
189
1090-0586/04/0900-0189/0
C
2004 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.
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190 Wilson and Peper
memories and vice-versa. This was particularly true for positive or pleasant memories.
Riskind (1984) also found that if the posture of the participant (upright or slumped) matched
the outcome of the experiment (winning or losing) moods were affected. If individuals
slumped after experiencing failure or helplessness, the slumping minimised feelings of help-
lessness, depression, and motivation. If they slumped after success, they lost motivation and
feelings of control. These findings were interpreted as incongruence between outcome (task
success) and slumped posture (negative affect). Schouwastra, Sanneke, and Hoogstraten
(1995) found that individuals assigned different emotions to various postures as depicted
by stick figures. Straight upright posture of the stick figure was assigned the most positive
emotions, whereas shoulder and head forward was assigned the most negative emotion.
Although the above research was based upon self-report, surface electromyography
(sEMG) of facial expression during affective states has received extensive study (for reviews
see Bradley, 2000; Cacioppo, Berntson, Larsen, Poehlmann, & Ito, 2000). Surface EMG
differences in the zygomaticus major or cheek facial muscles have been shown to distinguish
happiness from sadness (Gehricke & Shapiro, 2000; Jaencke, 1994; Sirota & Schwartz,
1982). More extensive and recent work by Larsen, Norris, and Cacioppo (2003) found
that the corrugator supercilii responds to both positive and negative affect, whereas the
zygomaticus major distinguishes more clearly positive affect.
Boiten (1996) and Levenson and Ekman (2002) found differences in heart rate when
they had participants manipulate their facial expressions. These differences were not at-
tributed to either the difficulty or the time needed to make the facial configuration or the
activation of other nonfacial muscles. This suggests that more than one psychophysiological
system is activated when facial expressions change.
This study explores whether an individual’s slumped or upright posture will affect
his/her recall of positive and negative thoughts. The study also explored the relationships
between psychophysiological measures and self-reports of mood state, absorption, and
imagery ability.
METHOD
Participants
Eleven males, mean age of 24, and 13 females, mean age of 32, voluntarily participated
in the study. The students were from a holistic health class at a metropolitan university and
were naive as to the expectations of the study.
Instruments
The participants completed a paper and pencil background questionnaire that asked
about injuries or disorders related to the head, neck, chest, or abdominal region. They were
asked about whether they were experiencing or had experienced depression or anxiety that
required medical or psychological intervention. Because the purpose was to use nonclinical
participants, one person was not included in the study as she was receiving treatment
for depression. They also completed the Tellegen Scale (Tellegen & Atkinson, 1974) that
assessed their ability to create and be “absorbed” by one’s thoughts or images. Studies
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Effects of Postures on the Recall of Thoughts 191
using factorial analyses (Glisky, Tataryn, Tobias, Kihlstrom, & McConkey, 1991; Roche &
McConkey, 1990) report that absorption is similar to but not identical to hypnotisability, and
is significantly correlated with measures of a broader dimension of openness to experience
(awareness of inner feelings, unusual perceptions, etc). Additionally, the participants were
asked to self-rate their imagery ability. The question, “When you imagine something, how
well do you generally see, feel, smell, or talk your way through the image?” was rated on
a scale from 0 = nothing to 10 = extremely vivid and clear.
Prior to the psychophysiological recordings, each person was asked to rate her/his
mood state from 0 = depressed through 5 = feel OK to 10 = top of the world, very happy.
This was included to eliminate any individuals who may have been experiencing a very
depressed state on the day of the testing. No individuals were excluded.
Physiological signals were recorded by a ProComp + (Thought Technology Ltd).
Surface electromyography (sEMG) was recorded with two active electrodes placed over
the left zygomaticus major muscle (cheek) and the reference electrode placed equidistant
from the active electrodes. The band pass filter was set at 100–200 Hz. Heart rate (HR) was
derived from a photoplethysmyograph recorded from the second finger of the left hand. Res-
piration assessment was included to ascertain whether the postures of the participants were
differentially affecting their breathing and perhaps modifying sEMG or HR. Respiration
was recorded with a strain gauge sensor placed 2.5 cm above the umbilicus. Respiration
rate (RR) was calculated by counting the number of breaths per minute excluding segments
that contained movement artifacts.
Procedure
Participants filled out the subjective questionnaires, physiological sensors were ap-
plied, and the physiological signals were calibrated while the participants sat comfortably
in a chair. Then the participants were asked to sit comfortably with their eyes closed for a
5-min resting baseline while they were asked to “soften their eyes, smooth the forehead,
maintain space between their back teeth and to empty their mind.” These same instructions
were repeated for a 1-min relaxation period between each experimental condition. The
experimental conditions were counter-balanced and consisted of the following four 1-min
conditions: either an upright posture (“sit up tall and with your back straight, head up, eyes
closed”) or a slumped posture (“sit in a slumped position, head down, eyes closed”) using
either negative thoughts (“think or feel of past events that make you sad, depressed, or bad”)
or positive thoughts (“think or feel of past events that make you happy, joyous, or good”). At
the end of each experimental trial, participants rated the following questions on a scale from
0 = not at all through 5 = somewhat to 10 = extremely well. “Overall, how well were you able
to obtain the requested thought or mood?”“How intense were the thoughts/feelings of the
thoughts or mood ”? “How much time (in 10-s blocks from 0 to 60 s) were you able to main-
tain the thoughts or mood?” Individuals who were unable to maintain the appropriate thought
for at least 40 s at a moderate intensity (scale of 5) were eliminated from the data analysis.
Three individuals were eliminated from the data analyses for failure to meet this criterion.
At the end of the experiment, each participant was asked which thought or mood
state, positive or negative, was easiest to generate in the upright postures. This question
was repeated for the slumped posture. Participants were then debriefed and asked not to
disclose the nature of the experiment to others.
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192 Wilson and Peper
Data Analysis
Chi-square was used to examine group rating comparisons. Pearson correlations were
used to elucidate the relationships between or among the dependent variables, and a one-
way ANOVA with repeated measures was used for all physiological measures with the
post-hoc analysis being the Newman–Keuls. Significance was set at the p <.05 level for
all assessments. The means of each 1-min trial of the physiological data were calculated
following the exclusion of movement artifacts.
RESULTS
Positive thoughts were significantly easier to create in the upright posture for 22 of 24
participants, χ
2
(1, 23) = 10.08, p <.01. There was no significant statistical difference for
negative thoughts being created in the slumped posture even though 17 of 24 participants
rated negative thoughts easier to produce, χ
2
(1, 23) = 2.14, p = .14.
Positive thoughts were significantly associated with an increase in sEMG from the zy-
gomaticus major muscle. An ANOVA with repeated measures of the sEMG data of baseline
and four experimental conditions showed significant differences, F (4, 80) = 3.18, p <.05.
The Newman–Keuls post-hoc analysis indicated significantly more sEMG in the positive
thought versus the negative thought or baseline conditions, in both the upright and the
slumped positions (see Fig. 1). Three of the individuals failed to maintain the positive or
negative thought for at least 40 of the 60 s in each of the trials with a moderate intensity
and, thus, were eliminated from the psychophysiological analyses.
There were no significant differences in the RR and HR physiological measures
when comparing across all conditions. There were no significant correlations between the
Fig. 1. Mean zygomaticus major muscle sEMG activity for all participants across
all postural conditions.
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Effects of Postures on the Recall of Thoughts 193
self-report measures of current mood state and any of the posttrial questions in-length of
time to recall and maintain the thoughts nor the intensity of the thoughts recalled. There
were significant correlations ( p <.05) between the prestudy self-report question on im-
agery ability and the amount of time the person was able to maintain the image in the positive
(r = .49) and negative (r = .51) trials. The group average for the Tellegen absorption scale
was 24.0 compared with a normative average of 19.8. Scores on the Tellegen absorption
scale were significantly (r =−.41) and negatively correlated with the individuals’ reports
of how quickly they could obtain a negative thought in the slumped position. The Telle-
gen score was also significantly (r = .46) correlated with their prestudy self-rating of their
imagery ability.
A comparison of the subgroup of individuals who thought negative (n = 14) from
those who thought positive (n = 7) in the slumped position, showed trends suggesting that
they have different physiological patterns for sEMG and HR (p <.10). The participants
who reported that thinking positive was the easiest to generate even in the slumped position
had a trend of higher zygomaticus major sEMG activity for the positive thoughts in both
postural conditions than those who reported that negative thoughts were easiest to generate.
In addition, the positive thinking subgroup had lower physiological arousal levels across
conditions as indicated by HR.
DISCUSSION
Participants self reported that positive thoughts are significantly easier to generate
in the upright position. This is similar to Riskind (1983) and Schouwastra, Sanneke, and
Hoogstraten (1995) in that their individuals assigned more positive thoughts to an upright
position. The higher sEMG in zygomaticus major found in the positive thought condition
compared to the negative condition was also in agreement with earlier findings where only
thoughts but not postural positions were considered (Gehricke & Shapiro, 2000; Jaencke,
1994; Sirota & Schwartz, 1982). In this study, zygomaticus major sEMG also remained
high in the slumped postural position when participants were asked to think of positive
thoughts.
The failure in this study of the sEMG of left zygomaticus major muscle (cheek) to
distinguish between a negative thought and a pretrial rest period agrees with Larsen, Norris,
and Cacioppo’s (2003) recent work. They reported that only the corrugator supercilii recip-
rocally responds to both positive and negative thoughts. Future work on facial expressions
as markers for thought patterns should include the sEMG of at least the zygomaticus major
and the corrugator supercilii. Future studies should also explore other physiological measure
such as right and left frontal EEG for identifying positive and negative thoughts, because
depression appears to change the EEG activity in those regions (Lane, Reiman, Ahern, &
Schwartz, 1997).
Unlike Boiten (1996) and Levenson and Ekman’s (2002) participants, the HR of our
participants did not differ when expressing either positive or negative thoughts. The partic-
ipants did report being able to recall and maintain both positive and negative thoughts and
the sEMG confirmed positive thought production but perhaps the thought production was
not significantly strong enough to evoke cardio-respiratory responses. Or, the differences
may be due to their studies (Boiten, 1996; Levenson & Ekman, 2002; Riskin, 1983) ac-
tively asking their participants to manipulate their facial expression and that may have
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194 Wilson and Peper
more strongly activated other psychophysiological systems. In addition to asking partici-
pants just to think/feel thoughts without reference to muscle manipulation, as was done in
this study, future studies should also include active muscle manipulation with the postural
adjustments.
Although twice as many participants reported that negative thoughts were easier to
generate in the slumped position, it was not statistical significant. Perhaps failure to obtain
significant differences may be due to what appears to be a unique subgroup of partici-
pants who found positive thoughts easier and more preferable to think all the time. We
recommend a replication of this study with a larger sample size and measures of pos-
itive versus negative orientations or traits to determine if there are distinct sub-groups
which may be reflected in differing psychophysiological responses. This possibility needs
further study as it may have important implications for researchers who may use psy-
chophysiological measures without accounting for the thought orientation of the
participants.
Clinicians may wish to adapt their therapeutic strategies and incorporate posture manip-
ulation when applying cognitive restructuring techniques that involve positive and negative
thought manipulation. Body position could possibly be used as a cue and physiological
amplifier to enhance or inhibit positive or negative thoughts.
Participants who scored higher on the Tellegen absorption scale were able to generate
negative thoughts more quickly than those who had lower absorption scores, but only in
the slumped position. Whether posture is more responsible for this relationship or whether
it is the negative thinking that causes one to be more absorbed needs further investigation.
Surprisingly, the Tellegen scale did not correlate to an individual’s ability to maintain an
image or thought across time nor the intensity of that image or thought. This is unlikely to
be due to the absorption ability of the participants as their average score was higher than
the average reported by Tellegen.
Participants who reported better imagery abilities were able to maintain the positive
or negative thoughts for a longer time period during the experimental trials. This finding
supports the belief that not all individuals can image equally and that it may be prudent to
determine a person’s ability to image when asking individuals to sustain thoughts or images
across time.
In summary, this study suggests that posture may significantly affect evocation of
positive or negative thoughts. In particular, positive thoughts are easier to produce in an
upright position. Clinicians may need to account for, and incorporate posture, when applying
cognitive restructuring techniques that involve positive and negative thought manipulation.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We thank Theresa Johanson, Maria Sundquist, and Katherine H. Gibney for their
assistance in the collection of data and collaboration in the research.
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