Affective valence facilitates spatial detection on vertical axis: shorter time strengthens effect

Abstract

Affective concepts can be described in terms of space, which is known as the valence-space metaphor. Previous studies have not investigated either the specifics of this metaphor on the transverse and vertical axes or the time course of this metaphoric association. With Chinese participants, we used a spatial cue task to study the valence-space metaphor on the transverse (left-and-right; Experiment 1A) and vertical (upper-and-lower; Experiment 1B) axes. After being shown an affective word and asked to keep it in mind, the participants were given a spatial target detection task. The results revealed that the metaphoric association was only found on the vertical axis. More specifically, keeping a positive word in mind facilitated the detection of the upper target, but no such effect was found in the detection of the lower target. Furthermore, in Experiment 2, we manipulated the duration of time (100, 500, and 1000 ms) between the offset of the affective word and the onset of the spatial target (i.e., interstimulus intervals, ISI), to test the dynamic time course of the valence-space metaphor on the vertical axis. The results showed that when ISI was 100 ms, keeping a positive word in mind facilitated the detection of the upper target and keeping a negative word in mind facilitated the detection of the lower target. However, when the ISI was 500 or 1000 ms, keeping a positive word in mind facilitated the detection of the upper target and no such effect was found in the detection of the lower target, indicating that ISI might be important in the valence-space metaphoric association. In sum, we found that the processing of affective valence activated the vertical spatial axis but not the transverse axis. Further, the association might be modulated by ISI, indicating that it may be related to attention allocation.

Cross-modal metaphorical mapping of spoken emotion words onto vertical space

“…This result has similar precedents in previous related research. Recently, Marmolejo-Ramos et al (2014 ; Experiment 2) have reported a reliable priming effect of the emotional valence of sentences representing emotional contexts on the processing of visual probes at the upper position, which was not observed for lower positions (see also Xie et al, 2015 ). In the same direction, the metaphorical congruency effects between affect and vertical space found by Meier and Robinson (2004) and Santiago et al (2012 ; see Experiments 1 and 3) showed a higher effect size (in the sense of a higher difference between mean RTs of congruent and incongruent trials) at an upper than lower location; although it is true that the embodied congruency effect was also significant at lower positions, in contrast to our findings.…”

“…Importantly, the WM effects on search were absent when observers were merely exposed to the memory cue without a later report ( Soto et al, 2005 ; Olivers et al, 2006 ), similar to our Experiment 1. Accordingly, it might be considered that the embodied interaction observed here could be due to the active maintenance in WM of emotionally valenced information irrespective of the specific interval between stimuli (although see Xie et al, 2015 ). Crucially, this possibility should be taken into account for future research on this topic.…”

“…Specifically, it has been argued that abstract and emotion concepts have sensorimotor properties much like concrete concepts. For example, it has been shown that there is a metaphorical association between emotionally valenced concepts and the vertical plane (e.g., Meier and Robinson, 2004 ; Meier et al, 2011 ; Sasaki et al, 2012 , 2015 ; Santiago et al, 2012 ; Marmolejo-Ramos and Dunn, 2013 ; Marmolejo-Ramos et al, 2013 , 2014 ; Xie et al, 2014 , 2015 ; Damjanovic and Santiago, 2015 ). Most of the work on the association between emotion words and the vertical axis has used visual words as typical experimental stimuli.…”

Nodding and shaking of the head as simulated approach and avoidance responses

“…For example, there are studies that have found compatibility effects involving spatial responses and words with affective value (e.g. Lakoff & Johnson, 1980;1999;Chasteen, Burdzy, & Pratt, 2010;Xie, Huang, Wang, & Liu, 2015). We therefore wanted to investigate the compatibility effect in a task in which the response did not require the movement of the head.…”

A Dual Mechanism of Cognition and Emotion in Processing Moral-Vertical Metaphors

“…Consequently, moral value is regarded as identical to emotional value. In addition, the vertical spatial metaphor of moral concepts is closely related to that of emotional concepts and many previous studies have found a metaphorical connection between emotion and verticality, demonstrating that “positive is up and negative is down” (Wapner et al, 1957; Meier and Robinson, 2004; Wu et al, 2008; Henetz and Casasanto, 2009; Lü and Lu, 2013; Gottwald et al, 2015; Xie et al, 2015). Researchers also implicitly associate positive and negative ideas with left–right space (Casasanto, 2009; Casasanto and Chrysikou, 2011; de la Vega et al, 2012), and found a metaphorical connection between emotion and horizontality.…”