Placing joy, surprise and sadness in space. A cross-linguistic study.
Author(s) / Creator(s)
Marmolejo-Ramos, F.
Correa, J. C.
Sakarkar, G.
Ngo, G.
Ruiz-Fernández, S.
Butcher, N.
Yamada, Y.
Other kind(s) of contributor
Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien
Abstract / Description
The valence–space metaphor posits that emotion concepts map onto vertical space such that positive concepts are in upper locations and negative in lower locations. Whilst previous studies have demonstrated this pattern for positive and negative emotions e.g. ‘joy’ and ‘sadness’, the spatial location of neutral emotions, e.g. ‘surprise’, has not been investigated, and little is known about the effect of linguistic background. In this study, we first characterised the emotions joy, surprise and sadness via ratings of their concreteness, imageability, context availability and valence before examining the allocation of these emotions in vertical space. Participants from six linguistic groups completed either a rating task used to characterise the emotions or a word allocation task to implicitly assess where these emotions are positioned in vertical space. Our findings suggest that, across languages, gender, handedness, and ages, positive emotions are located in upper spatial locations and negative emotions in lower spatial locations. In addition, we found that the neutral emotional valence of surprise is reflected in this emotion being mapped mid-way between upper and lower locations onto the vertical plane. This novel finding indicates that the location of a concept on the vertical plane mimics the concept’s degree of emotional valence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)
Persistent Identifier
Date of first publication
2017
Journal title
Psychological Research
Volume
81
Issue
4.0
Page numbers
750-763
Publisher
Springer
Publication status
publishedVersion
Review status
peerReviewed
Is version of
10.1007/s00426-016-0787-9
Citation
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s00426-016-0787-9.pdfAdobe PDF - 865.15KBMD5: 7a6ece0e9b655e7d50b026bd616c3045
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There are no other versions of this object.
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Author(s) / Creator(s)Marmolejo-Ramos, F.
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Author(s) / Creator(s)Correa, J. C.
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Author(s) / Creator(s)Sakarkar, G.
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Author(s) / Creator(s)Ngo, G.
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Author(s) / Creator(s)Ruiz-Fernández, S.
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Author(s) / Creator(s)Butcher, N.
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Author(s) / Creator(s)Yamada, Y.
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Other kind(s) of contributorLeibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien
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PsychArchives acquisition timestamp2017-08-28T11:11:16Z
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Made available on2017-08-28T11:11:16Z
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Date of first publication2017
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Abstract / DescriptionThe valence–space metaphor posits that emotion concepts map onto vertical space such that positive concepts are in upper locations and negative in lower locations. Whilst previous studies have demonstrated this pattern for positive and negative emotions e.g. ‘joy’ and ‘sadness’, the spatial location of neutral emotions, e.g. ‘surprise’, has not been investigated, and little is known about the effect of linguistic background. In this study, we first characterised the emotions joy, surprise and sadness via ratings of their concreteness, imageability, context availability and valence before examining the allocation of these emotions in vertical space. Participants from six linguistic groups completed either a rating task used to characterise the emotions or a word allocation task to implicitly assess where these emotions are positioned in vertical space. Our findings suggest that, across languages, gender, handedness, and ages, positive emotions are located in upper spatial locations and negative emotions in lower spatial locations. In addition, we found that the neutral emotional valence of surprise is reflected in this emotion being mapped mid-way between upper and lower locations onto the vertical plane. This novel finding indicates that the location of a concept on the vertical plane mimics the concept’s degree of emotional valence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)
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Publication statuspublishedVersion
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Review statuspeerReviewed
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Persistent Identifierhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12034/505
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Persistent Identifierhttps://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.713
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PublisherSpringer
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Is version of10.1007/s00426-016-0787-9
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TitlePlacing joy, surprise and sadness in space. A cross-linguistic study.
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DRO typearticle
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Leibniz institute name(s) / abbreviation(s)IWM
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Leibniz subject classificationPsychologie
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Issue4.0
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Journal titlePsychological Research
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Page numbers750-763
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Volume81
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Visible tag(s)Version of Record