The challenges of dealing with distributed signs of emotion: Theory and empirical evidence

There clearly are important issues associated with the distinction between acted and naturalistic data, but focusing on acting may not be the best way to articulate them. An alternative is to focus on differences of structure which are often (but not always) associated with the distinction. Several such differences relate to the way signs are distributed: simultaneous or sequential appearance; in one modality or many; stable or unstable; suggesting one emotion or many; briefly or continually available. These distinctions clearly relate to different demands on analysis.