An Analysis of Simple Lines and Emotions in Chinese Population: Concave for Happy, Convex for Sad

Abstract

There has been an abiding interest in how faces convey emotions. The facial information related to the emotion can be processed from the face independently of the context. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether concave and convex lines could convey emotional meaning to Chinese participants. A total of forty Chinese university students participated in the study and completed an implicit association test. Participants were required to match basic lines (concave, convex, straight) with or without eye dots to emotion words (happy or sad). Results showed participants associated happy more quickly with concave lines and sad more quickly with convex lines compared to other lines. This provides preliminary evidence that simple lines can communicate emotions. However, differences in response times were not statistically significant. Adding eye shapes also did not significantly impact response speeds or change line-emotion associations. More research is needed to systematically test how basic shapes and facial features convey distinct emotions across cultures.