Being moved experiences have been recognized by many authors, dating back to the nineteen century with the work of Darwin and William James. However, research has approached and conceptualized these experiences differently, mostly due to the diversity of events that trigger emotions, and to the distinct operationalizations based on subjective reports. Recently, the kama muta ('being moved by love') framework has been proposed as a cross-cultural conceptualization of these experiences. Because prior research has relied on subjective reports, our main goal was to examine the pattern of physiological responses to kama muta and compare it to similar though distinct emotions such as sad and awe experiences. One hundred forty-four Portuguese and Norwegian participants were individually exposed to three emotion conditions in a randomized order: kama muta, awe, and sad. For each condition two video stimuli were presented. Several physiological indexes of the autonomic nervous system were collected continuously during exposure, including cardiovascular, respiratory, and electrodermal activity, fEMG, video recordings of the skin and eye region and subjective emotion ratings. Overall, the results show similarities, but also differences in physiological and self-report patterns between kama muta, sad, and awe conditions, which are relevant for understanding how humans respond to events that evoke moving experiences, comprehend the autonomic nervous function, and contribute more broadly to a clear characterization of emotions.

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Being moved,Physiological responses,Kama Muta,awe,sad,autonomic nervous system,tears,goosebumps,facial EMG,Skin conductance,heart rate,heart rate variability,temperature,emotions

• Psychology - Social Sciences