Visual and interoceptive factors shape affective and aesthetic evaluations of body postures

The influence of internal body rhythms, such as heartbeats, on affective and cognitive processes remains an area of research, informing how bodily states shape perception of the world. Studies of facial expression evaluation show that emotional (negative vs. neutral) faces are detected more easily and perceived as more intense when presented during systole rather than diastole, two phases of the cardiac cycle. Whether similar cardiac phase effects extend to affective and aesthetic evaluations of human bodies remains unclear. In this preregistered study, participants without dance training rated upright and inverted body postures from motion capture recordings of contemporary dancers for emotional intensity and likability. Each image was presented during either the participant's ventricular systole or diastole. We assessed interoceptive accuracy (via the Heartbeat Counting Task; HBCT) and collected emotional valence and bodily arousal ratings for each stimulus. Contrary to predictions, emotional intensity and likability did not increase during systole. Instead, we found that cardiac-related effects were conditional. Emotional intensity was positively associated with bodily arousal, except for inverted postures during systole. How this relationship depended on orientation was modulated by HBCT performance. Likability was positively associated with valence, with this relationship becoming stronger as HBCT performance increased. These findings suggest cardiac-related factors may contribute to affective and aesthetic evaluations of dance-like body postures, as a function of body orientation, stimulus affective characteristics, and individual differences in heartbeat perception. They indicate that ongoing physiological states may shape how others are evaluated beyond facial information, extending to both affective and aesthetic domains.