A multi-sensory code for emotional arousal

Sievers, Beau; Lee, Caitlyn; Haslett, William; Wheatley, Thalia

doi:10.1098/rspb.2019.0513

Cited by 36 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…It is possible that the emotion-temperature associations are fundamentally driven by core affect, which according to the constructionist theory of emotion, is parsed into specific emotion categories [ 24 , 100 ]. As Sievers et al [ 101 ] suggested, there is a high degree of similarity in how people understand expressions of emotional arousal since they are signaled with a multisensory code based on variations in magnitude. Our findings agree with Jackson et al [ 27 ] in that they seem to reflect the existence of a common semantic framework of emotions across language based on valence and arousal, which are linked to neurophysiological systems that keep homeostasis, although there exists cultural differences.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The temperature of emotions

et al. 2021

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Emotions and temperature are closely related through embodied processes, and people seem to associate temperature concepts with emotions. While this relationship is often evidenced by everyday language (e.g., cold and warm feelings), what remains missing to date is a systematic study that holistically analyzes how and why people associate specific temperatures with emotions. The present research aimed to investigate the associations between temperature concepts and emotion adjectives on both explicit and implicit levels. In Experiment 1, we evaluated explicit associations between twelve pairs of emotion adjectives derived from the circumplex model of affect, and five different temperature concepts ranging from 0°C to 40°C, based on responses from 403 native speakers of four different languages (English, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese). The results of Experiment 1 revealed that, across languages, the temperatures were associated with different regions of the circumplex model. The 0°C and 10°C were associated with negative-valanced, low-arousal emotions, while 20°C was associated with positive-valanced, low-to-medium-arousal emotions. Moreover, 30°C was associated with positive-valanced, high-arousal emotions; and 40°C was associated with high-arousal and either positive- or negative-valanced emotions. In Experiment 2 (N = 102), we explored whether these temperature-emotion associations were also present at the implicit level, by conducting Implicit Association Tests (IATs) with temperature words (cold and hot) and opposing pairs of emotional adjectives for each dimension of valence (Unhappy/Dissatisfied vs. Happy/Satisfied) and arousal (Passive/Quiet vs. Active/Alert) on native English speakers. The results of Experiment 2 revealed that participants held implicit associations between the word hot and positive-valanced and high-arousal emotions. Additionally, the word cold was associated with negative-valanced and low-arousal emotions. These findings provide evidence for the existence of temperature-emotion associations at both explicit and implicit levels across languages.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The temperature of emotions

et al. 2021

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“…The results of the PCA suggest that the dependent variables used in Experiment 1 assessed two main dimensions of music: namely, valence and arousal. Recent computational research has proposed that low level sensory properties of shapes and sounds is related to emotional arousal which might explain why people expected music in angular typeface conditions to sound different from the round typeface conditions (Sievers, Lee, Haslett, & Wheatley, 2019). Specifically, the frequency spectrum of a stimulus, the spectral centroid, of both visual and auditory stimuli can predict judgements about emotional arousal (Sievers et al, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, the angular-bold typeface may be reminiscent of heavy metal band logos such as that of Metallica (Sievers, Lee, Haslett, & Wheatley, 2019). The present studies were limited in that they only used classical sounding music.…”

Section: The Typeface Of Music 39mentioning

confidence: 99%

Does the typeface on album cover influence expectations and perception of music?

Venkatesan¹,

Wang²,

Spence³

2022

Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts

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CD and digital album covers are part of the music purchase/consumption experience, yet very little is known about how album cover design influences people's expectations concerning, and their perception of, music. This paper explores the effect of the typeface curvilinearity of album cover design on people's expectations and perception of music. Typeface curvilinearity has been shown to influence expectations across other sensory modalities, such as taste (gustation). Across three studies, we demonstrate how angular versus rounded typeface can impact expectations concerning how the music will sound. We also demonstrate how angular and rounded typefaces influence emotion ratings of actual music samples. In Experiment 1, typeface curvilinearity influenced people's expectations of music, with participants expecting the music to sound more angular, masculine, fast, rough, happy, evil, violent, exciting, and active when the typeface on the faux CD album cover was angular compared to when it was round. Conversely, participants expected the music to sound more round, feminine, slow, smooth, sad, good, gentle, calm, and passive when the typeface was round than when it was angular. Experiment 2 demonstrated that typeface curvilinearity influenced people's ratings of emotional valence but not arousal in neutral music (i.e., music that is considered neither round nor angular). Specifically, participants evaluated the music as sounding more pleasant when the CD cover featured round typeface. Finally, in Experiment 3, we did not find evidence that CD album cover typeface influences people's perception of arousal or valance of music when the music itself is rated as sounding highly round or angular. These results will be of interest to designers and marketing experts when creating CD covers, logos, posters, and lyric videos.

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“…The association between angularity and negative emotions has not only been found during passive viewing or listening, but also through action, speci cally drawing. When people were prompted to draw shapes to match a given emotion word (e.g., angry), they drew shapes with jagged lines and sharp angles 44 . Of course, angularity is not the only contributing factor in emotional judgements, as we have shown.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cues to Danger: Contour Features Predict Valence and Threat Judgements in Scenes

Damiano

Walther

Cunningham

2021

Preprint

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Quickly scanning an environment to determine relative threat is an essential part of survival. Scene gist extracted rapidly from the environment may help people detect threats. Here, we probed this link between emotional judgements and features of visual scenes. We first extracted curvature, length, and orientation statistics of all images in the International Affective Picture System image set and related them to emotional valence scores. Images containing angular contours were rated as negative, and images containing long contours as positive. We then composed new abstract line drawings with specific combinations of length, curvature, and orientation values and asked participants to rate them as positive or negative, and as safe or threatening. Low curvature, long, horizontal contour scenes were rated as positive/safe, while short, high curvature contour scenes were rated as negative/threatening. Our work shows that particular combinations of image features help people make judgements about potential threat in the environment.

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A multi-sensory code for emotional arousal

Cited by 36 publications

References 40 publications

The temperature of emotions

The temperature of emotions

Does the typeface on album cover influence expectations and perception of music?

Cues to Danger: Contour Features Predict Valence and Threat Judgements in Scenes

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