TY - JOUR
T1 - The activation of representative emotional verbal contexts interacts with vertical spatial axis
AU - Marmolejo-Ramos, Fernando
AU - Montoro, Pedro R.
AU - Elosúa, María Rosa
AU - Contreras, María José
AU - Jiménez-Jiménez, William Alejandro
PY - 2014/8
Y1 - 2014/8
N2 - Several experimental studies have shown that there exists an association between emotion words and the vertical spatial axis. However, the specific conditions under which this conceptual-physical interaction emerges are still unknown, and no study has been devised to test whether longer linguistic units than words can lead to a mapping of emotions on vertical space. In Experiment 1, Spanish and Colombian participants performed a representative verbal emotional contexts production task (RVEC task) requiring participants to produce RVEC for the emotions of joy, sadness, surprise, anger, fear, and disgust. The results showed gender and cultural differences regarding the average number of RVEC produced. The most representative contexts of joy and sadness obtained in Experiment 1 were used in Experiment 2 in a novel spatial-emotional congruency verification task (SECV task). After reading a sentence, the participants had to judge whether a probe word, displayed in either a high or low position on the screen, was congruent or incongruent with the previous sentence. The question was whether the emotion induced by the sentence could modulate the responses to the probes as a function of their position in a vertical axis by means of a metaphorical conceptual-spatial association. Overall, the results indicate that a mapping of emotions on vertical space can occur for linguistic units larger than words, but only when the task demands an explicit affective evaluation of the target.
AB - Several experimental studies have shown that there exists an association between emotion words and the vertical spatial axis. However, the specific conditions under which this conceptual-physical interaction emerges are still unknown, and no study has been devised to test whether longer linguistic units than words can lead to a mapping of emotions on vertical space. In Experiment 1, Spanish and Colombian participants performed a representative verbal emotional contexts production task (RVEC task) requiring participants to produce RVEC for the emotions of joy, sadness, surprise, anger, fear, and disgust. The results showed gender and cultural differences regarding the average number of RVEC produced. The most representative contexts of joy and sadness obtained in Experiment 1 were used in Experiment 2 in a novel spatial-emotional congruency verification task (SECV task). After reading a sentence, the participants had to judge whether a probe word, displayed in either a high or low position on the screen, was congruent or incongruent with the previous sentence. The question was whether the emotion induced by the sentence could modulate the responses to the probes as a function of their position in a vertical axis by means of a metaphorical conceptual-spatial association. Overall, the results indicate that a mapping of emotions on vertical space can occur for linguistic units larger than words, but only when the task demands an explicit affective evaluation of the target.
KW - Embodiment
KW - Emotions
KW - Metaphorical mapping
KW - Social cognition
KW - Spatial cognition
KW - Verbal emotional contexts
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84906316376&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10339-014-0620-6
DO - 10.1007/s10339-014-0620-6
M3 - Article
C2 - 24866175
AN - SCOPUS:84906316376
SN - 1612-4782
VL - 15
SP - 253
EP - 267
JO - Cognitive Processing
JF - Cognitive Processing
IS - 3
ER -