Abstract
Visual information may convey different affective valences and induce our brain into different affective perceptions. Many studies have found that unpleasant stimuli could produce stronger emotional effects than pleasant stimuli could. Although there has been a notion that triangle is perceived as negative and circle as positive, there has been no systematic study to map the degrees of valence of shapes with different affective perceptions. Here, we employed four shapes (ellipse, triangle, and line-drawn happy and angry faces) to investigate the behavior and electrophysiological responses, in order to systematically study shape-induced affective perception. The reaction time delay and the event-related potential (ERP), particularly the early ERP component, were applied to find the associations with different affective perceptions. Our behavioral results showed that reaction time for angry face was significantly shorter than those for the other three types of stimuli (p < 0.05). In the ERP results, P1, N1, P2, and N2 amplitudes for angry face were significantly larger than those for happy face. Similarly, P1, N1, P2, and N2 amplitudes for triangle were significantly larger than those for ellipse. Particularly, P1 amplitude in the parietal lobe for angry face was the strongest, followed by happy face, triangle, and ellipse. Hence, this work found distinct electrophysiological evidence to map the shape-induced affective perception. It supports the hypothesis that affective strain would induce larger amplitude than affective ease does and strong affective stimuli induce larger amplitude than mild affective stimuli do.
Highlights
Threat detection from visual perception has been developed for our survival over the time span of the biological evolution
Post hoc analysis revealed that reaction time for angry face was significantly shorter than those for the other three types of stimuli (p < 0 05)
Post hoc analysis showed that N1 amplitude for angry face was significantly larger than that for happy face (p < 0 05), and N1 amplitude for triangle was significantly larger than that for ellipse (p < 0 05). These results suggested that the “cognitive strain” group induced larger response amplitude than the “cognitive ease” group did
Summary
Threat detection from visual perception has been developed for our survival over the time span of the biological evolution. Facial expressions such as a happy face and an angry face are consciously perceived as positive and negative in social interaction [1]. Even a simple shape, which is similar to the geometric configuration of the face in angry expression, is perceived as threatening. In 2006, Aronoff reviewed how humans recognize angry and happy emotions in people, places, and objects. He demonstrated that it is the geometrical patterns, such as diagonal and angular configurations, rather than actual facial features that conveyed the message of threats, while round and curved shapes were linked to warmth [3]. The questions arise: From complex faces to simple geometric shapes, is there any shared cognitive processing? What is the perception advantage of shapes developed in our brain?
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