Large as being on top of the world and small as hitting the roof: a common magnitude representation for the comparison of emotions and numbers

Baldassi, Giulio; Murgia, Mauro; Prpic, Valter; Rigutti, Sara; Domijan, Dražen; Agostini, Tiziano; Fantoni, Carlo

doi:10.1007/s00426-020-01306-3

Cited by 11 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 95 publications

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“…Our study contributes to this debated issue within the field of the face expression recognition by investigating whether the face inversion effect, which has been predominantly studied with isolated faces and emotions (Taubert et al, 2016 ), may affect emotion comparison. In particular, we consider a typical pattern of motor reactivity rising from attentional capture with symbolic (like numbers) and non-symbolic (like facial expressions) intensities recently discovered by Fantoni et al, ( 2019 ) and Baldassi et al, ( 2021 ) using a simultaneous comparison task. In their task with non-symbolic intensities (i.e., emotional comparison task), faces at different degrees of valence were displayed side-by-side, with one face presented to the left visual hemifield and the other one presented to the right visual hemifield.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By randomizing the presentation of stimuli including/not-including a low perceptually salient (i.e., neutral) face, like half-range (i.e., a neutral face paired with a fully happy or angry face) and cross-range (i.e., an angry face paired with a happy face with equal emotional intensity) emotional pairs, Fantoni et al, ( 2019 ), but see also Baldassi et al, ( 2021 ) found the following combination of effects: Response speeds increased together with absolute emotional intensity of the target face irrespective of its valence being it positive (as in the case of happy faces) or negative (as in the case of angry faces). This corresponds to a Semantic Congruency effect (Banks & Flora, 1977 ; Banks et al, 1975 , 1976 ) at the level of emotion recognition, namely an Emotion Semantic Congruency effect (ESC).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Attentional capture in emotion comparison is orientation independent

Baldassi

Murgia

Prpic

et al. 2022

Psychological Research

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Recent findings on emotion comparison show a typical pattern of motor reactivity rising from attentional capture. When pairs of emotional faces are presented simultaneously, the most intense emotional face is recognized faster (Emotional Semantic Congruency—ESC effect). Furthermore, a global response speed advantage for emotional pairs with positive rather than negative average emotion intensity is observed (i.e., emotional size effect), with the choice for the happiest face resulting in a faster response than the choice for the angriest face within the pair (i.e., the happiness advantage). In two experiments, we asked whether these effects are orientation dependent, and thus linked to whether face processing is holistic or part-based. Participants were asked to choose the angriest/happiest face in emotional pairs displayed either in upright or inverted orientation and including (Experiment 1) or not including (Experiment 2) a neutral face. Beyond an overall facilitation for upright relative to inverted pairs, results showed orientation independent ESC and emotional size effects. Furthermore, the happiness advantage was present in emotional pairs of Experiment 2 but not in emotional pairs of Experiment 1, independently from face orientation. Together, results suggest that attentional capture in emotion comparison is immaterial on the type of face processing, being orientation invariant.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attentional capture in emotion comparison is orientation independent

Baldassi

Murgia

Prpic

et al. 2022

Psychological Research

Self Cite

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“…Furthermore, SNARC-like effects have been found in the processing of nonsymbolic quantities such as luminance (Fumarola et al, 2014; Ren et al, 2011), size (Prpic et al, 2020; Ren et al, 2011), weight (Dalmaso & Vicovaro, 2019), temporal duration and pace (De Tommaso & Prpic, 2020; Ishihara et al, 2008; Vallesi et al, 2008, 2011), angle magnitude (Fumarola et al, 2016), and facial expressions of emotions (Holmes & Lourenco, 2011; see also Baldassi et al, 2021; Fantoni et al, 2019). The stimuli used in these studies are not typically organized as overlearned ordinal sequences; therefore, these SNARC-like effects are reasonably accounted for in terms of magnitude.…”

Section: Flexibility and Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Snarcing with a phone: The role of order in spatial-numerical associations is revealed by context and task demands.

Mingolo

Prpic

Bilotta

et al. 2021

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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Previous literature on the spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect examined which factors modulate spatial-numerical associations. Recently, the role of order in the SNARC effect has been debated, and further research is necessary to better understand its contribution. The present study investigated how the order elicited by the context of the stimuli and by task demands interact. Across three experiments, we presented numbers in the context of a mobile phone keypad, an overlearned numerical display in which the ordinal position of numbers differs from the mental number line. The experiments employed three tasks with different levels of consistency with the order elicited by the context. In Experiment 1, participants judged numbers based on their spatial position on the keypad, and we found a spatial association consistent with the keypad configuration, indicating that the spatial association is driven both by the context and by the task when they consistently elicit the same order. In Experiment 2a, participants performed a magnitude classification task, and results revealed a lack of spatial associations, suggesting a conflict between the orders elicited by the context and by the task. In Experiment 2b, participants performed a parity judgment task, and the results revealed a SNARC effect, suggesting that the order elicited by the context did not modulate the spatial association. Overall, three different tasks gave rise to three different results. This shows that the context alone is not sufficient in modulating spatial-numerical associations but that the consistency between the orders elicited by context and task demands is a key factor. Public Significance StatementHumans use spatial coordinates to mentally represent numbers. Typically, small numbers are represented on the left space and large numbers on the right space. However, the association between numbers and space is quite flexible, and previous studies showed that it could be modulated by the context in which numbers are presented. Is the context sufficient to modulate spatial-numerical associations? In the present study, we demonstrate that task demands have an important role and that the direction of the spatial-numerical association depends on the interaction between task demands and context.

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“…Specifically, SRC mapping has been observed in many non-spatial domains, such as size (Ren et al 2011 ; Wühr and Seegelke 2018 ), brightness (Fumarola et al 2014 ), time (Ishihara et al 2008 ), and even in highly abstract domains like emotional intensity or risk judgment (Holmes et al 2019 ; Macnamara et al 2018 ). For example, people are faster to respond to low-risk perceptions or negative emotions when they are in the left space and vice-versa, even though a specific reference for the emotional intensity domain is quite debated in the field (see Baldassi et al 2021 ; Fantoni et al 2019 for an alternative approach to this topic). These studies suggest that left-to-right representation effects exist in other sensory domains besides vision.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Different mechanisms of magnitude and spatial representation for tactile and auditory modalities

et al. 2021

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The human brain creates an external world representation based on magnitude judgments by estimating distance, numerosity, or size. The magnitude and spatial representation are hypothesized to rely on common mechanisms shared by different sensory modalities. We explored the relationship between magnitude and spatial representation using two different sensory systems. We hypothesize that the interaction between space and magnitude is combined differently depending on sensory modalities. Furthermore, we aimed to understand the role of the spatial reference frame in magnitude representation. We used stimulus–response compatibility (SRC) to investigate these processes assuming that performance is improved if stimulus and response share common features. We designed an auditory and tactile SRC task with conflicting spatial and magnitude mapping. Our results showed that sensory modality modulates the relationship between space and magnitude. A larger effect of magnitude over spatial congruency occurred in a tactile task. However, magnitude and space showed similar weight in the auditory task, with neither spatial congruency nor magnitude congruency having a significant effect. Moreover, we observed that the spatial frame activated during tasks was elicited by the sensory inputs. The participants' performance was reversed in the tactile task between uncrossed and crossed hands posture, suggesting an internal coordinate system. In contrast, crossing the hands did not alter performance (i.e., using an allocentric frame of reference). Overall, these results suggest that space and magnitude interaction differ in auditory and tactile modalities, supporting the idea that these sensory modalities use different magnitude and spatial representation mechanisms.

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Large as being on top of the world and small as hitting the roof: a common magnitude representation for the comparison of emotions and numbers

Cited by 11 publications

References 95 publications

Attentional capture in emotion comparison is orientation independent

Attentional capture in emotion comparison is orientation independent

Snarcing with a phone: The role of order in spatial-numerical associations is revealed by context and task demands.

Different mechanisms of magnitude and spatial representation for tactile and auditory modalities

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