Audience size influences actors’ anxiety and associated postures on stage

Highlights

• Actors are more anxious when facing a large audience.

• Actors dislike having too few spectators.

• There could be an optimal audience size to promote actors’ well-being on stage.

• Anxiety level is reflected by laterality of body orientation towards the public in actors.

Abstract

Public performance is a reported source of anxiety. While the relationship between emotion and postural laterality is well-known in animals, few studies have tested the possible link between audience effect, anxiety and head orientation in humans. The Valence-Specific Hypothesis posits that the left/right sides of the brain are specialized for processing positive/negative emotions respectively. Here, actors performed a piece in the presence of small, medium and large audiences. They self-reported feeling more anxious when the audience was large (also confirmed with speech analyses), but the small audience was scored with the lowest preference. We also found that the large audience was associated with the fewest orientations facing the public. Moreover, both large and small audiences were associated with more left-side than right side orientations. Here, actors’ emotions influenced lateralized positioning, with a tendency to use the left visual field (i.e. right hemisphere) in more anxious and less preferred situations, supporting the Valence-Specific hypothesis.

Introduction

Speaking or performing in public is known to be a source of stress for most people. Just before, during or just after the performance, musicians (Abel and Larkin, 1990; LeBlanc et al., 1997), singers (Garland and Brown, 1972), dancers (Shikanai and Hachimura, 2014), public speakers (classroom – Baldwin and Clevenger, 1980; university – MacIntyre and MacDonald, 1998) and stage actors (Konijn, 1991) have an increase in anxiety, as found both in self reports as well as in behavioural and physiological measures. For example, systolic and diastolic blood pressure and heart rate of musicians increase when about to perform in front of an audience for critical evaluation (Abel and Larkin, 1990). Cortisol levels increased in students just after they had to speak in public (Sumter and Miers, 2010). During public speeches, politicians (Heritage and Greatbatch, 1986) and students (Paulmann et al., 2016) exhibit voice changes (e.g. loudness, pitch, and rhythm), eye-contact avoidance and exaggerated gestures. The stress experienced by speakers also affects the fluency of speech (number of words, duration of pauses) (Buchanan et al., 2014) and impairs the recall of information memorized (Vogel and Schwabe, 2016). Another topic of potential interest is how the position of performers, and notably laterality, is affected by the internal state. For example, research on human baby cradling, and posing for portraits, suggests that individuals position themselves so as to expose preferentially the left hemiface to the partner (Nicholls et al., 1999 and 2002) or/and to use the left visual field to observe the partner (Manning and Chamberlain, 1991). The choice of the hemiface exposed is evidently directly linked to the emotional state of the individual (i.e. emotionally expressive individuals being even more likely to turn their left cheek when posing, Nicholls et al., 1999 and 2002) or to the emotional valence of the context such as during aggressive vs friendly social encounters (Basile et al., 2009).

A link between perceptual laterality and emotional state has been quite well studied in animals (Rogers et al., 2013; Versace and Vallortigara, 2015; Vallortigara and Versace, 2017). The Valence-Specific Hypothesis (VSH) posits that the left side of the brain is specialized for processing positive emotions and the right side for processing negative emotions (Ahern and Schwartz, 1979; Davidson, 1984; Wedding and Stalans, 1985; Hook-Costigan and Rogers, 1998). More and more studies, notably those interested in visual perception, are now supporting the VSH hypothesis. Adjustment of head position and eye movements play a similar role in mammals with frontal vision as does the choice for right or left lateral visual fields in animals with laterally placed eyes (Vallortigara et al., 1999; Vallortigara, 2000). In line with this, the predominance of the left visual field preference (i.e. suggesting a contralateral right hemisphere processing) varies with the level of negative emotion or anxiety during social encounters and exposures to negative stimuli in nonhuman primates (Casperd and Dunbar, 1996; Baraud et al., 2009; Quaresmini et al., 2014), dogs (Quaranta et al., 2007; Siniscalchi et al., 2013), horses (Larose et al., 2006; De Boyer et al., 2008; Austin and Rogers, 2014) and cetaceans (Chanvallon et al., 2017).

Several factors are known to influence the internal state of performing individuals. Stress levels vary according to the performer’s sex (e.g. Garland and Brown, 1972; Baldwin and Clevenger, 1980; LeBlanc et al., 1997) and age (e.g. Sumter and Miers, 2010), but also audience characteristics (e.g. sex, and level of expertise – Garland and Brown, 1972; familiarity, pleasantness and expertise - MacIntyre and MacDonald, 1998). Audience size could be a major factor in influencing anxiety with typically large audiences being more anxiety-inducing (McKinney et al., 1983), although contrasting effects have been described. For example, a smaller audience (3 vs 21) was associated with higher heart rates in classroom students during impromptu speeches (Baldwin and Clevenger, 1980), while a larger audience (13–20 vs 0–1) was associated with higher heart rates and self-reported anxiety scores in musicians during performances (LeBlanc et al., 1997).

Here, we collaborated with an acting school to experimentally test the impact of different audience sizes on young actors’ anxiety. A particular focus was put on the laterality of their spontaneous postural adjustments, as a potential reflection of the valence of the emotional state thus induced. Anxiety was measured by self-report, and by recordings of speech parameters. We expected more lateralized postural adjustments in extreme audience size situations, either small or large.