Affective valence facilitates spatial detection on vertical axis: shorter time strengthens effect

Jiushu Xie · Yanli Huang · Ruiming Wang · Wenjuan Liu

32 citations0/0 files storedFrontiers in Psychology

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Language, Metaphor, and Cognition Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies Categorization, perception, and language

Abstract

Affective concepts can be described in terms of space, which is known as the valence-space metaphor. Previous studies have not investigated either the specifics of this metaphor on the transverse and vertical axes or the time course of this metaphoric association. With Chinese participants, we used a spatial cue task to study the valence-space metaphor on the transverse (left-and-right; Experiment 1A) and vertical (upper-and-lower; Experiment 1B) axes. After being shown an affective word and asked to keep it in mind, the participants were given a spatial target detection task. The results revealed that the metaphoric association was only found on the vertical axis. More specifically, keeping a positive word in mind facilitated the detection of the upper target, but no such effect was found in the detection of the lower target. Furthermore, in Experiment 2, we manipulated the duration of time (100, 500, and 1000 ms) between the offset of the affective word and the onset of the spatial target (i.e., interstimulus intervals, ISI), to test the dynamic time course of the valence-space metaphor on the vertical axis. The results showed that when ISI was 100 ms, keeping a positive word in mind facilitated the detection of the upper target and keeping a negative word in mind facilitated the detection of the lower target. However, when the ISI was 500 or 1000 ms, keeping a positive word in mind facilitated the detection of the upper target and no such effect was found in the detection of the lower target, indicating that ISI might be important in the valence-space metaphoric association. In sum, we found that the processing of affective valence activated the vertical spatial axis but not the transverse axis. Further, the association might be modulated by ISI, indicating that it may be related to attention allocation.

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References

2011Different Bodies, Different Minds 2009Embodiment of abstract concepts: Good and bad in right- and left-handers.2004Why the Sunny Side Is Up 2005Your Highness: Vertical Positions as Perceptual Symbols of Power.2010Do English and Mandarin speakers think about time differently?2011Handedness Shapes Children’s Abstract Concepts 2011Polarity correspondence in metaphor congruency effects: Structural overlap predicts categorization times for bipolar concepts presented in vertical space.2010Thinking about the future moves attention to the right.

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