Effects of affective picture viewing on postural control in healthy male subjects

Emotion theory holds that unpleasant events prime withdrawal actions, whereas pleasant events prime approach actions. Recent studies have suggested that passive viewing of emotion-eliciting images results in postural adjustments. The main objective of this research was to investigate the effects of emotional inputs on the postural control. Ten healthy young adults looked at a series of emotion-eliciting images while standing on a force plate. The images were taken from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). The posture-stabilometric parameters were statistically analyzed (RM ANOVA on Ranks). The results showed that the emotional inputs might influence body balance.