Facial expressions are not the only way we express our emotions - body language also plays a crucial role. The way our body moves when laughing at a comedy show is different from how we move when reuniting with an old friend. Although both are expressions of happiness, finding common patterns across different situations is difficult. These patterns become particularly challenging to define when we consider cross-cultural differences as well.

Researchers from the Interdisciplinary ICT Research Center for Cyber and Real Spaces, Research Institute of Electrical Communication at Tohoku University (Japan) in collaboration with National Chung Cheng University (Taiwan), tackled these challenges by collecting body movements from different situations, emotions, and personal styles in a motion capture lab. Unlike previous databases that focused on simple and repetitive actions (e.g., walking sadly, walking happily, walking angrily), and were primarily based on Western populations, this new database aims to capture a wide range of emotional bodily expressions across various scenarios, with a focus on Japanese people born and raised in Japan.