In traditional journaling practices, authors express and process their thoughts by writing them down. We propose a somaesthetic-inspired alternative that uses the human body, rather than written words, as the medium of expression. We coin this embodied journaling, as people's isolated body movements and spoken words become the canvas of reflection. We implemented embodied journaling in virtual reality and conducted a within-subject user study (n=20) to explore the emergent behaviours from the process and to compare its expressive and reflective qualities to those of written journaling. When writing-based norms and affordances were absent, we found that participants defaulted towards unfiltered emotional expression, often forgoing words altogether. Rather, subconscious body motion and paralinguistic acoustic qualities unveiled deeper, sometimes hidden feelings, prompting reflection that happens after emotional expression rather than during it. We discuss both the capabilities and pitfalls of embodied journaling, ultimately challenging the idea that reflection culminates in linguistic reasoning.

翻译：在传统的日志记录实践中，作者通过书写来表达和处理他们的思想。我们提出了一种受身体美学启发的替代方案，它使用人体而非书面文字作为表达媒介。我们将此称为具身日志记录，因为人们孤立的身体动作和口头言语成为了反思的画布。我们在虚拟现实中实现了具身日志记录，并开展了一项被试内用户研究（n=20），以探索该过程中涌现的行为，并将其表达与反思特性与书面日志记录进行比较。当基于书写的规范与可供性缺失时，我们发现参与者默认倾向于未经过滤的情感表达，常常完全放弃使用词语。相反，潜意识的身体动作和副语言声学特性揭示了更深层、有时是隐藏的情感，促成了发生在情感表达之后而非表达过程中的反思。我们讨论了具身日志记录的能力与缺陷，最终对反思必然以语言推理为顶点的观点提出了挑战。