Ballet dancers show distinct brain responses to other people's facial emotions

by City St George's, University of London

edited by Gaby Clark, reviewed by Robert Egan

Gaby Clark

Scientific Editor

Meet our editorial team
Behind our editorial process

Robert Egan

Senior Editor

Meet our editorial team
Behind our editorial process Editors' notes

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

fact-checked

peer-reviewed publication

trusted source

proofread

The GIST Add to Preferred Sources

Dance training can influence how we perceive not only movement but also everyday emotional expressions, according to new research from the Centre for Cognition and Neuroscience at City St George's, University of London.

The study, published in the journal Cerebral Cortex, found that dance expertise influences the brain's early visual and somatosensory responses when observing emotional facial expressions.

The findings build on Beatriz Calvo-Merino's previous research, which showed for the first time that motor training, such as dance expertise, can modulate how we perceive actions. This latest study broadens that understanding, suggesting that the effects of dance training extend beyond familiar, dance-specific movements to influence the perception of emotions in other people's faces.

Calvo-Merino, professor of cognitive neuroscience at City St George's, said, "The impact of dance expertise goes beyond movement and taps into social perception mechanisms, such as face processing and emotions. This is fascinating as it provides direct evidence for the impact of the arts on social cognition."

Comparing brain responses to facial expressions

To investigate the relationship between dance expertise and emotion processing, the researchers recruited 26 professional or trainee ballet dancers from dance schools across London, alongside 26 people without dance experience.

The team, formed by Dr. Vasiliki Meletaki, Bettina Forster and Calvo-Merino, recorded participants' brain activity using specialized equipment as they completed a task involving the identification of emotions and whether faces were perceived as male or female. Participants were shown images of happy, afraid and neutral facial expressions.

Forster developed the EEG analysis approach used to examine when and where brain responses to emotional expressions differed between dancers and nondancers, allowing the researchers to investigate how dance expertise influences both visual and somatosensory processing.

Dancers show earlier differences in processing

The results revealed distinct patterns of brain activity between dancers and nondancers, indicating that dance expertise influences how emotional expressions are processed through both visual and somatosensory systems.

In particular, dancers showed early differences in their brain responses to neutral and emotional faces, suggesting a distinctive way of processing emotional expressions. They also demonstrated early somatosensory responses to facial emotions, particularly neutral and afraid faces.

By contrast, nondancers showed emotional effects primarily at later stages of emotional processing compared to dancers.

A bodily dimension to emotion perception

As a result, the findings suggest that dance expertise shapes both the visual and embodied perception of emotions, providing new evidence of how specialized motor and artistic training can influence human perception.

Forster said, "What is particularly interesting is that dance expertise appears to influence how the somatosensory cortex responds to emotions expressed by others. This suggests that our own bodily experiences can shape how the brain processes other people's emotions, providing further evidence for the embodied nature of emotion perception."

Meletaki added, "It was exciting for us to find empirical evidence for the profound impact professional dance training has on how dancers perceive not only their bodies and dance movements but also other people's emotional expressions."

Publication details

Vasiliki Meletaki et al., Sensorimotor expertise effects extend from dance to face perception, Cerebral Cortex (2026). DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhag186

Journal information: Cerebral Cortex

Key medical concepts

Somatosensory CortexElectroencephalography

Clinical categories

NeurologyPsychology & Mental health Provided by City St George's, University of London Who's behind this story?

Gaby Clark

MA in English, copy editor since 2021 with experience in higher education and health content. Dedicated to trustworthy science news. Full profile →

Robert Egan

Bachelor's in mathematical biology, Master's in creative writing. Well-traveled with unique perspectives on science and language. Full profile →

Citation: Ballet dancers show distinct brain responses to other people's facial emotions (2026, November 11) retrieved 12 November 2026 from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-11-ballet-dancers-distinct-brain-responses.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.