Abstract: There has been controversy about whether different emotions correspond to different physiological responses. Nummenmma et al. (2014) used emBODY tool and found that each emotion has its unique bodily sensation map (BSM). They believed that BSMs may simultaneously reflect changes in skeletomuscular and visceral sensations as well as the effects of autonomic nervous system, but traditional psychophysiological techniques cannot reveal the connection between BSMs and physiological changes. This study is aimed at exploring this question further, using emBODY and qualitative interview. This study involved four emotions: happiness, love, fear and anxiety. 98 Chinese college students participated in this study, and they were asked to draw their bodily sensation of each emotion on an iPad, using the tool of emBODY. After completing the pictures, 94 participants voluntarily participated in the follow-up interview and verbally reported the bodily sensations reflected in the BSMs. The main findings are as follows. (1) The results of BSMs in this study were similar to the previous research (Nummenmaa et al., 2014) to a large extent, but there were still some differences. For example, in this study, the activity of lower abdomen of males slightly increased, which was particularly evident in the previous research (Nummenmma et al., 2014). According to the interview, it represented sexual arousal. However, most of Chinese participants did not show this in the picture. This may be due to the cultural constraint. Moreover, drawing method (online or offline) may also influence the results. (2) According to the interview, BSMs reflected a variety of bodily sensations. Specifically, the activation of head in BSMs mainly reflected changes in facial expressions, the excitement of the brain, increased thoughts, blushing and so on. The activation of chest in BSMs mainly reflected the rapid heartbeat, warmth, or discomfort. The activation of limbs, hands and feet in BSMs mainly reflected an increase in behavioral tendency or an increase in body temperature, while the deactivation of limbs, hands and feet mainly reflected feelings of stiffness and coldness. Qualitative data analysis divided the participants’ descriptions of bodily sensations into 12 categories, which could be further classified into four dimensions: cognition, feeling, physiological response, and behavioral tendency. That is to say, the bodily sensations reflected in BSMs are not limited to physiological responses. Another possible inference is that although current researches suggest that it is difficult to distinguish emotions only by physiological responses, if we consider the other aspects of bodily sensations, it may be possible to distinguish different emotions. (3) From the interview, we found that BSMs have some limitations as a research tool, which has not been paid enough attention to in previous studies. First, the participants may have different understandings of “activation” and “deactivation”. Many participants reported the feeling of pain of the lower abdomen when they experienced the emotion of fear, but some participants thought that pain represented activation, while others regarded it as deactivation, which resulted in no change in the BSMs. Besides, in the existing research using BSMs as a tool, there was only one side of body, which made it hard to show the feelings of the back. Future research needs to take these issues into consideration.

Key words: emotion, bodily sensation maps, qualitative methods

摘要： 关于不同情绪是否对应不同的生理反应一直存在争议。Nummenmma等人（2014）使用自创的emBODY工具，发现每种情绪都有其独特的身体感觉地图（BSMs）。本研究以中国大学生为被试，以emBODY为研究工具绘制快乐、爱、恐惧、焦虑四种情绪的BSMs，并要求被试口头报告BSMs所反映的身体感觉。结果发现，四种情绪具有不同的身体感觉，体现为BSMs的差异与主观报告的差异。质性资料分析发现BSMs所反映的身体感觉不仅包括生理反应、也包括认知、感受和行为倾向，这为情绪与身体的关系提供了新的证据。被试对身体部位活动性增强或减弱的理解不一致、只呈现身体的一面等是BSMs作为研究工具的潜在局限，未来研究需要做出改进。

关键词: 情绪，身体感觉地图，质性研究