Abstract
Growing evidence suggests that the underlying geometry of a visual image is an effective mechanism for conveying the affective meaning of a scene or object. Indeed, even very simple context-free geometric shapes have been shown to signal emotion. Specifically, downward-pointing V’s are perceived as threatening and curvilinear forms are perceived as pleasant. As these shapes are thought to be primitive cues for decoding emotion, we sought to assess whether they are evaluated as affective even without extended cognitive processing. Using an Implicit Association Test to examine associations between three shapes (downward- and upward-pointing triangles, circles) and pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral scenes, in two studies we found that participants were faster to categorize downward-pointing triangles as unpleasant compared to neutral or pleasant. These findings were specific to downward-pointing shapes containing an acute angle. The present findings support the hypothesis that simple geometric forms convey emotion and that this perception does not require explicit judgment.
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Notes
Greenwald et al. (2003) recommend using a D statistic that involves computing the difference between the compatible and incompatible blocks and dividing by the pooled variance across the two blocks. This statistic was calculated and yields identical results for the compatible compared to incompatible blocks in the present studies. For ease of interpretation the mean RTs are presented here.
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Acknowledgments
We wish to thank Molly Barton, and Lorri Kais for their assistance. All authors affiliated with the Department of Psychology. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: Christine L. Larson, University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, Department of Psychology, 2441 E. Hartford Avenue, Milwaukee, WI 53211. Electronic mail may be sent to larsoncl@uwm.edu.
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Larson, C.L., Aronoff, J. & Steuer, E.L. Simple geometric shapes are implicitly associated with affective value. Motiv Emot 36, 404–413 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-011-9249-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-011-9249-2