Upward action promotes selective attention to negative words

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Embodied Cognition
• Metaphorical Processing

Background:

• Space-valence metaphors (e.g., 'bad is down') influence cognitive and emotional processing.
• Previous research shows vertical motor actions affect emotional valence ratings when actions follow stimulus presentation.
• The current study investigates the impact of motor actions preceding stimulus presentation on emotional valence and visual attention.

Purpose of the Study:

• To test the hypothesis that motor action before stimulus presentation does not affect valence rating but may influence visual selective attention.
• To examine the effect of pre-stimulus vertical manual action on emotional valence and selective attention to emotional stimuli.

Main Methods:

• Experiment 1: Replicated previous findings using ANOVA and t-tests to assess manual action's effect on valence rating when action preceded stimulus.
• Experiment 2: Employed a modified dot-probe task to measure visual selective attention to emotional stimuli.
• Participants performed vertical or horizontal manual actions before the presentation of emotional word pairs.

Main Results:

• Manual action introduced before stimulus presentation did not affect emotional valence ratings (Experiment 1).
• Upward manual action, preceding stimulus presentation, promoted selective attention to negative words (Experiment 2).
• This effect of upward action on attention to negative stimuli was incongruent with the established space-valence metaphor.

Conclusions:

• Prospective manual action does not alter the evaluative processing of emotional stimuli.
• However, pre-stimulus upward manual action can enhance visual attention towards subsequent negative stimuli.
• This attention effect occurs incongruently with the typical 'bad is down' space-valence metaphorical mapping.