Don't look down: emotional arousal elevates height perception

The influence of threat on visuospatial perception, affordances, and protective behaviour: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Perception has been conceptualised as an active and adaptive process, based upon incoming sensory inputs, which are modified by top-down factors such as cognitions. Visuospatial perception is thought to be scaled based on threat, with highly threatening objects or contexts visually inflated to promote escape or avoidance behaviours. This meta-analytical systematic review quantified the effect and evidence quality of threat-evoked visuospatial scaling, as well as how visuospatial scaling relates to affordances (perceived action capabilities) and behavioural avoidance/escape outcomes. Databases and grey literature were systematically searched inclusive to 10/04/24. Studies were assessed with a customised Risk of Bias form and meta-analysis was performed using a random-effects model. 12,354 records were identified. Of these, 49 experiments (n = 3027) were included in the review. There was consistent evidence that threat the of height influenced contextual perception (g = 0.66, 95% CI: 0.45, 0.88) and affordances (g = -0.43, 95% CI: -0.84, -0.03). Threatening objects were viewed as larger (g = 0.76, 95% CI: 0.26, 1.26) and as closer (g = 0.30, 95% CI: 0.17, 0.42). Bodily threat (pain) yielded conflicting effects on visuospatial perception/affordances. We conclude that threat may influence visuospatial perception and affordances. However, since behavioural measures were poorly reported, their relationship with visuospatial perception/affordances remains elusive.

Trust or Distrust: The Effect of Facial Emotion and Trustworthy Behavior on Trust Decision-Making

Based on the model of emotion as social information, this study explores the effects of facial emotions and trustworthy behavior on trust decision-making in trust game through two experiments. The present study used trust game explores the impact of players' facial emotion, arousal and trustworthy behavior on individual trust decision-making through two experiments. The results can be summed up as follows: (1) in the repeated interaction with four players, individuals invest more in trustworthy players than untrustworthy players; (2) individuals invested more in trustworthy players with happy facial emotions, while untrustworthy players with angry facial emotions received less investment. High-arousal facial emotion results in a more extreme investment by the individual; (3) when the players' facial emotion and behavior are inconsistent, the individual will judge according to the player's current behavior, rather than the facial emotion or past behavior.

Moderate physical activity alters the estimation of time, but not space

Moderate physical activity can influence cognitive functions and visual cortical activity. However, little is known about the effects of exercise on fundamental perceptual domains, such as spatial and temporal representation. Here we tackled this issue by testing the impact of physical activity on a temporal estimation task in a group of adult volunteers in three different conditions: (1) in a resting condition (baseline), (2) during moderate physical activity (cycling in place – PA), and (3) approximately 15 to 20 min following the physical activity phase, in which participants were seated and returned to a regular heart rate (POST). We show that physical activity specifically impacts time perception, inducing a consistent overestimation for durations in the range of milliseconds. Notably, the effect persisted in the POST session, ruling out the main contribution of either heart rate or cycling rhythmicity. In a control experiment, we found that spatial perception (distance estimation) was unaffected by physical activity, ruling out a major contribution of arousal and fatigue to the observed temporal distortion. We speculate that physical exercise might alter temporal estimation either by up-regulating the dopaminergic system or modulating GABAergic inhibition.

The perceived duration of vast spaces is mediated by awe

Looking out over the Pacific Ocean or the Grand Canyon can lead to a sense of vastness. As a perceptual phenomenon, vastness poses a unique challenge because traditional measures of distance are not capable of explaining such large spatial extents. Vastness, however, may lead to a sense of awe, and awe, in turn, can dilate one's experience of time. Time, then, may be a meaningful proxy measure of vastness. Whether vastness is related to the perception of time and if the emotional experience of awe plays a role in that relation was explored herein. Across three experiments, we examined the relation between vastness, awe, and perceived time. In Experiment 1, participants reproduced the perceived duration of images varying in vastness and rated them in terms of the awe experienced as if they were in the spaces. Greater vastness led to higher awe scores and longer duration estimates, with awe mediating the relation between vastness and time. Experiment 1 assessed if the average brightness of images, absent of scene structure, explained changes in perceived duration. Brightness did not explain variance in perceived duration; thus, the scene structure of vast scenes may play a role in altering perceived time. Experiment 1 examined if scene semantics could explain changes in perceived duration. Whereas the relation between vastness and perceived duration vanished, a weak, mediated effect still occurred. Ultimately, time may not be a proxy measure of vastness, but we find evidence that emotion can link the relation between spatial and temporal perception.

The effect of induced COVID-19-related fear on psychological distance and time perception

Emotional experience can influence cognitive estimates such as perceived psychological distance and time judgements. These estimators are crucial in threatening situations like the COVID-19 pandemic because the subjective perception of the closeness of a potential infection might influence behaviour. However, to date it remains unclear how fear affects these estimates. We report on data from N = 183 participants collected in Germany during the summer of 2020, when a "second wave" of COVID-19 infections was still only on the horizon of public awareness. We induced COVID-19-related fear in members of one group and compared their estimates of psychological distance and time judgements to those of a neutral group. Fear induction influenced these conjoint estimates in the way that an increase in infection rates appeared farther away and of shorter duration. Mediation analysis revealed inverse effects of changes in valence and ratings of Fear of COVID-19 on psychological distance. Possible explanations for these effects are discussed.

Emotional Arousal and Valence Jointly Modulate the Auditory Response: A 40-Hz ASSR Study

Emotion is defined as a response to external stimuli and internal mental representations. It has been characterized as a multidimensional concept, primarily comprising two dimensions: valence and arousal. Existing studies have demonstrated that emotional experience exerts a powerful impact on auditory processing in terms of valence. However, it has also been shown that while negative emotion can improve auditory perception in healthy subjects, patients with depression show deficits in auditory perception. We thus speculated that both arousal and valence jointly modulate auditory perception. To examine the emotion-driven effects on the auditory response, we induced positive, negative, and neutral emotional states in healthy subjects and collected auditory steady-state response (ASSR) evoked by a 40-Hz chirp sound. We calculated peak-to-peak amplitude (PPA) and event-related spectral perturbation (ERSP) of evoked ASSRs and observed that the positive emotions significantly enhanced brain responses to auditory stimuli (p < 0.001), but that ASSRs in a negative state were not significantly enhanced compared with the neutral state. Subsequently, regression analysis showed a significant positive multiple linear relationship between the PPA and ratings of two emotional dimensions, indicating that arousal and valence jointly regulated the auditory cortex's synchronous oscillation, rather than the valence in isolation, offering the potential to clarify the conflicting results surrounding the role of negative emotions in auditory responses. Because depression is generally characterized by low arousal and low valence in actual life, whereas the negative emotion evoked under laboratory conditions is always with low valence but high arousal.

Useful misrepresentation: perception as embodied proactive inference

According to the predictive processing framework, perception is geared to represent the environment in terms of embodied action opportunities as opposed to objective truth. Here, we argue that such an optimisation is reflected by biases in expectations (i.e., prior predictive information) that facilitate 'useful' inferences of external sensory causes. To support this, we highlight a body of literature suggesting that perception is systematically biased away from accurate estimates under conditions where utility and accuracy conflict with one another. We interpret this to reflect the brain's attempt to adjudicate between conflicting sources of prediction error, as external accuracy is sacrificed to facilitate actions that proactively avoid physiologically surprising outcomes. This carries important theoretical implications and offers new insights into psychopathology.

Impact of proprioception on the perceived size and distance of external objects in a virtual action task

Previous research has revealed changes in the perception of objects due to changes of object-oriented actions. In present study, we varied the arm and finger postures in the context of a virtual reaching and grasping task and tested whether this manipulation can simultaneously affect the perceived size and distance of external objects. Participants manually controlled visual cursors, aiming at reaching and enclosing a distant target object, and judged the size and distance of this object. We observed that a visual-proprioceptive discrepancy introduced during the reaching part of the action simultaneously affected the judgments of target distance and of target size (Experiment 1). A related variation applied to the grasping part of the action affected the judgments of size, but not of distance of the target (Experiment 2). These results indicate that perceptual effects observed in the context of actions can directly arise through sensory integration of multimodal redundant signals and indirectly through perceptual constancy mechanisms.

Biased distance estimation in social anxiety disorder: A new avenue for understanding avoidance behavior

OBJECTIVES

People regulate their interpersonal space appropriately to obtain a comfortable distance for interacting with others. Socially anxious individuals are especially prone to discomfort from and fear of physical closeness, leading them to prefer a greater interpersonal distance from others. Previous studies also indicate that fear can enhance the threat-related elements of a threatening stimulus. For example, spider phobia is associated with estimating spiders as bigger and faster than they actually are. Nonetheless, it is still unclear whether the preference of those with social anxiety disorder (SAD) to maintain greater distance from others is associated with biased estimations of interpersonal distance.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A total of 87 participants (44 clinically diagnosed with SAD and 43 control) performed validated computerized and ecological tasks in a real-life setting while social space estimations and preferences were measured.

RESULTS

Participants with SAD felt comfortable when maintaining a greater distance from unfamiliar others compared to the control group and estimated unfamiliar others to be closer to them than they actually were. Moreover, the estimation bias predicted their preferred distance from strangers, indicating a strong association between estimation bias severity and actual approach-avoidance behavior.

CONCLUSION

Our findings indicate that distance estimation bias underlies avoidance behavior in SAD, suggesting the involvement of a new cognitive mechanism in personal space regulation.

The Role of Emotional Landmarks in Embodied and Not-Embodied Tasks

The role of emotional landmarks in navigation has been scarcely studied. Previous findings showed that valence and arousal of landmarks increase landmark’s salience and improve performance in navigational memory tasks. However, no study has directly explored the interplay between valence and arousal of emotionally laden landmarks in embodied and not-embodied navigational tasks. At the aim, 115 college students have been subdivided in five groups according to the landmarks they were exposed (High Positive Landmarks HPL; Low Positive Landmarks LPL; High Negative Landmarks HNL; Low Negative Landmarks LNL and Neutral Landmarks NeuL). In the embodied tasks participants were asked to learn a path in a first-person perspective and to recall it after five minutes, whereas in the not-embodied tasks participants were asked to track the learned path on a silent map and to recognize landmarks among distractors. Results highlighted firstly the key role of valence in the embodied task related to the immediate learning, but not to the delayed recall of the path, probably because of the short retention interval used. Secondly, results showed the importance of the interplay between valence and arousal in the non-embodied tasks, specifically, neutral and high negative emotional landmarks yielded the lowest performance probably because of the avoidance learning effect. Implications for future research directions are discussed.

Perceiving affordances in sports through a momentum lens

In this experimental study, we tested whether athletes' judgments of affordances and of environmental features vary with psychological momentum (PM). We recruited golf, hockey, and tennis players, who were assigned to a positive or negative momentum condition. We designed a golf course on which participants made practice putts, after which they were asked to place the ball at their maximum "puttable" distance and to judge the hole size. Next, participants played a golf match against an opponent, in which the first to take a lead of 5 points would win the match. Participants were told that they could win a point by making the putt or by being closest to the hole. They wore visual occlusion goggles to prevent them from seeing the actual result, and the experimenter manipulated the scoring pattern to induce positive or negative PM. Participants in the positive momentum condition came back from a four-point lag to a four-point lead, whereas those in the negative momentum condition underwent the opposite scenario. We then asked the participants again to indicate their maximum puttable distance from the hole and to judge the hole size. After the manipulation, participants judged the maximum puttable distance to be longer in the positive momentum condition and shorter in the negative momentum condition. For the hole-size judgments, there were no significant effects. These results provide first indications for the idea that athletes' affordances change when they experience positive PM compared to negative PM. This sheds a new light on the dynamics of perception-action processes and PM in sports.

Anxiety Influences the Perceptual-Motor Calibration of Visually Guided Braking to Avoid Collisions

We investigated whether anxiety influences perceptual-motor calibration in a braking to avoid a collision task. Participants performed either a discrete braking task (Experiment 1) or a continuous braking task (Experiment 2), with the goal of stopping before colliding with a stop sign. Half of participants performed the braking task after an anxiety induction. We investigated whether anxiety reduced the frequency of crashing and if it influenced the calibration of perception (visual information) and action (brake pressure) dynamically between-trials in Experiment 1 and within-trials in Experiment 2. In the discrete braking task, anxious participants crashed less often and made larger corrective adjustments trial-to-trial after crashing, suggesting that the influence of anxiety on behavior did not occur uniformly, but rather dynamically with anxiety amplifying the reaction to previous crashes. However, when performing continuous braking, anxious participants crashed more often, and their within-trial adjustments of deceleration were less related to visual information compared to controls. Taken together, these findings suggest that the timescale and nature of the task mediates the influence of anxiety on the performance of goal-directed actions.

Putting emotions in routes: the influence of emotionally laden landmarks on spatial memory

The aim of this study was to assess how people memorize spatial information of emotionally laden landmarks along a route and if the emotional value of the landmarks affects the way metric and configurational properties of the route itself are represented. Three groups of participants were asked to watch a movie of a virtual walk along a route. The route could contain positive, negative, or neutral landmarks. Afterwards, participants were asked to: (a) recognize the landmarks; (b) imagine to walk distances between landmarks; (c) indicate the position of the landmarks along the route; (d) judge the length of the route; (e) draw the route. Results showed that participants who watched the route with positive landmarks were more accurate in locating the landmarks along the route and drawing the route. On the other hand, participants in the negative condition judged the route as longer than participants in the other two conditions and were less accurate in mentally reproducing distances between landmarks. The data will be interpreted in the light of the "feelings-as-information theory" by Schwarz (2010) and the most recent evidence about the effect of emotions on spatial memory. In brief, the evidence collected in this study supports the idea that spatial cognition emerges from the interaction between an organism and contextual characteristics.

Tool use produces a size illusion revealing action-specific perceptual mechanisms

In four experiments, participants estimated the sizes of target objects that were either out of reach, or that could be reached by a tool (a stylus or laser pointer). Objects reachable with the aid of a tool were perceived to be smaller than identical objects without a tool. Participants' responses to questioning rule out demand characteristics as an explanation. This new size illusion may reflect a direct impact of tool use on perceived size, or it may stem from the effects of tool use on perceived distance. Both possibilities support action specific accounts of perception.

Congruent bodily arousal promotes the constructive recognition of emotional words

Considerable research has shown that bodily states shape affect and cognition. Here, we examined whether transient states of bodily arousal influence the categorization speed of high arousal, low arousal, and neutral words. Participants realized two blocks of a constructive recognition task, once after a cycling session (increased arousal), and once after a relaxation session (reduced arousal). Results revealed overall faster response times for high arousal compared to low arousal words, and for positive compared to negative words. Importantly, low arousal words were categorized significantly faster after the relaxation than after the cycling, suggesting that a decrease in bodily arousal promotes the recognition of stimuli matching one's current arousal state. These findings highlight the importance of the arousal dimension in emotional processing, and suggest the presence of arousal-congruency effects.

The Common Element Effect of Abstract-to-Abstract Mapping in Language Processing

Since the 1990s, there has been much discussion about how concepts are learned and processed. Many researchers believe that the experienced bodily states (i.e., embodied experiences) should be an important factor that affects concepts’ learning and use, and metaphorical mappings between abstract concepts, such as TIME and POWER, and concrete concepts, such as SPATIAL ORIENTATION, STRUCTURED EXPERIENCEs, etc., suggest the abstract-concrete concepts’ connections. In most of the recent literature, we can find common elements (e.g., concrete concepts) shared by different abstract-concrete metaphorical expressions. Therefore, we assumed that mappings might also be found between two abstract concepts that share common elements, though they have no symbolic connections. In the present study, two lexical decision tasks were arranged and the priming effect between TIME and ABSTRACT ACTIONs was used as an index to test our hypothesis. Results showed a robust priming effect when a target verb and its prime belonged to the same duration type (TIME consistent condition). These findings suggest that mapping between concepts was affected by common elements. We propose a dynamic model in which mappings between concepts are influenced by common elements, including symbolic or embodied information. What kind of elements (linguistic or embodied) can be used would depend on how difficult it is for a concept to be learned or accessed.

Slope climbing challenges, fear of heights, anxiety and time of the day

When exposed to an unfamiliar open space, animals experience fear and attempt to find an escape route. Anxiety emerges when animals are confronted with a challenging obstacle to this fear motivated escape. High anxiety animals do not take risks; they avoid the challenge. The present experiments investigated this risk avoidant behavior in mice. In experiment 1, BALB/c, C57BL/6J and CD-1 mice were exposed to a large platform with downward inclined steep slopes attached on two opposite sides. The platform was elevated 75 and 100cm from the ground, in a standard (SPDS) and in a raised (RPDS) configuration, respectively. In experiment 2, the platform was elevated 75cm from the ground. Mice had to climb onto a stand at the top of upward inclined slopes (SPUS). In experiment 3, BALB/c mice were exposed to SPDS with steep or shallow slopes either in early morning or in late afternoon. In all 3 test configurations, mice spent more time in the areas adjacent to the slopes than in the areas adjacent to void, however only C57BL/6J and CD-1 crossed onto the slopes in SPDS, and crossed onto the stands in SPUS whereas BALB/c remained on the platform in SPDS and explored the slopes in SPUS. Elevation of the platform from the ground reduced the crossings onto the slopes in C57BL/6J and CD-1, and no differences were observed between BALB/c and C57BL/6J. BALB/c mice demonstrated no difference in anxiety when tested early morning or late afternoon; they crossed onto shallow slopes and avoided the steep one.

Fear Similarly Alters Perceptual Estimates of and Actions over Gaps

Previous research has demonstrated an influence of one's emotional state on estimates of spatial layout. For example, estimates of heights are larger when the viewer is someone typically afraid of heights (trait fear) or someone who, in the moment, is experiencing elevated levels of fear (state fear). Embodied perception theories have suggested that such a change in perception occurs in order to alter future actions in a manner that reduces the likelihood of injury. However, other work has argued that when acting, it is important to have access to an accurate perception of space and that a change in conscious perception does not necessitate a change in action. No one has yet investigated emotional state, perceptual estimates, and action performance in a single paradigm. The goal of the current paper was to investigate whether fear influences perceptual estimates and action measures similarly or in a dissociable manner. In the current work, participants either estimated gap widths (Experiment 1) or were asked to step over gaps (Experiment 2) in a virtual environment. To induce fear, the gaps were placed at various heights up to 15 meters. Results showed an increase in gap width estimates as participants indicated experiencing more fear. The increase in gap estimates was mirrored in participants' stepping behavior in Experiment 2; participants stepped over fewer gaps when experiencing higher state and trait fear and, when participants actually stepped, they stepped farther over gap widths when experiencing more fear. The magnitude of the influence of fear on both perception and action were also remarkably similar (5.3 and 3.9 cm, respectively). These results lend support to embodied perception claims by demonstrating an influence on action of a similar magnitude as seen on estimates of gap widths.

The Transition from Crawling to Walking: Can Infants Elicit an Alteration of Their Parents' Perception?

Our study was designed to address a gap in the literature on parents' perception and motivation to protect their infants from potential risk of injury in the transition from crawling to walking. The participants were 260 Italian subjects, of whom 158 were women and 102 men, aged between 20 and 45 years. They were asked to draw two domestic objects (a kitchen table and a CD cover) to assess the possible alterations in the perception of environmental elements seen by the parents as a potentially dangerous cause of unintentional injury for their child. Analysis showed that the group of mothers with children aged 9-18 months had drawn the largest tables, while the table areas of the other two categories of women were much smaller. As for the males, the group that drew the largest tables was the one with children, but not in the age range of 9-18 months, while there was little difference between the other two groups. The final descriptive analysis concerned the average scores on the STAI-Y tests both for state and trait anxiety. In all groups a substantial parity was observed, except for the non-parent men, who had a lower level of state anxiety. Both the fathers and the mothers of children aged 9-18 months obtained lower scores, both for state and trait anxiety. Based on the findings, we demonstrate that children transitioning from crawling to walking can elicit a perceptive reactivity in their mothers, which satisfies their natural need to protect their offspring.

Moral-up first, immoral-down last: the time course of moral metaphors on a vertical dimension

Many abstract bipolar concepts are usually represented by metaphors on vertical dimensions (e.g. positive-up, negative-down). However, several studies have found an asymmetry in the way in which individuals process bipolar dimensions, with +polarities being stronger than -polarities. The current research focused on moral metaphors on a vertical dimension (e.g. moral-up and immoral-down) and examined the asymmetric representation of moral and immoral concepts. The first experiment showed a distinct metaphorical association between morality and vertical space, consistent with earlier research. The second experiment showed that moral and immoral words are processed differently depending on whether they are used as metaphorically congruent or incongruent vertical cues. 'Moral-up' association modulated the amplitudes of the N1, P2, and late positive-going potential during the processing of moral words, whereas the 'immoral-down' association only modulated the amplitudes of the late positive-going potential induced during the processing of immoral words. These results suggest that asymmetry in the processing of vertically represented morality metaphors is reflected in the time course of the representation of these bipolar concepts, with the 'moral-up' association having an earlier effect than the 'immoral-down' association.

Perceptual discrimination in fear generalization: Mechanistic and clinical implications

For almost a century, Pavlovian conditioning is the imperative experimental paradigm to investigate the development and generalization of fear. However, despite the rich research tradition, the conceptualization of fear generalization has remained somewhat ambiguous. In this selective review, we focus explicitly on some challenges with the current operationalization of fear generalization and their impact on the ability to make inferences on its clinical potential and underlying processes. The main conclusion is that, despite the strong evidence that learning influences perception, current research has largely neglected the role of perceptual discriminability and its plasticity in fear generalization. We propose an alternative operationalization of generalization, where the essence is that Pavlovian conditioning itself influences the breadth of fear generalization via learning-related changes in perceptual discriminability. Hence a conceptualization of fear generalization is incomplete without an in-depth analysis of processes of perceptual discriminability. Furthermore, this highlights perceptual learning and discriminability as important future targets for pre-clinical and clinical research.

Visual height intolerance and acrophobia: clinical characteristics and comorbidity patterns

The purpose of this study was to estimate the general population lifetime and point prevalence of visual height intolerance and acrophobia, to define their clinical characteristics, and to determine their anxious and depressive comorbidities. A case-control study was conducted within a German population-based cross-sectional telephone survey. A representative sample of 2,012 individuals aged 14 and above was selected. Defined neurological conditions (migraine, Menière's disease, motion sickness), symptom pattern, age of first manifestation, precipitating height stimuli, course of illness, psychosocial impairment, and comorbidity patterns (anxiety conditions, depressive disorders according to DSM-IV-TR) for vHI and acrophobia were assessed. The lifetime prevalence of vHI was 28.5% (women 32.4%, men 24.5%). Initial attacks occurred predominantly (36%) in the second decade. A rapid generalization to other height stimuli and a chronic course of illness with at least moderate impairment were observed. A total of 22.5% of individuals with vHI experienced the intensity of panic attacks. The lifetime prevalence of acrophobia was 6.4% (women 8.6%, men 4.1%), and point prevalence was 2.0% (women 2.8%; men 1.1%). VHI and even more acrophobia were associated with high rates of comorbid anxious and depressive conditions. Migraine was both a significant predictor of later acrophobia and a significant consequence of previous acrophobia. VHI affects nearly a third of the general population; in more than 20% of these persons, vHI occasionally develops into panic attacks and in 6.4%, it escalates to acrophobia. Symptoms and degree of social impairment form a continuum of mild to seriously distressing conditions in susceptible subjects.

Cognition does not affect perception: Evaluating the evidence for “top-down” effects

What determines what we see? In contrast to the traditional “modular” understanding of perception, according to which visual processing is encapsulated from higher-level cognition, a tidal wave of recent research alleges that states such as beliefs, desires, emotions, motivations, intentions, and linguistic representations exert direct, top-down influences on what we see. There is a growing consensus that such effects are ubiquitous, and that the distinction between perception and cognition may itself be unsustainable. We argue otherwise: None of these hundreds of studies – either individually or collectively – provides compelling evidence for true top-down effects on perception, or “cognitive penetrability.” In particular, and despite their variety, we suggest that these studies all fall prey to only a handful of pitfalls. And whereas abstract theoretical challenges have failed to resolve this debate in the past, our presentation of these pitfalls is empirically anchored: In each case, we show not only how certain studies could be susceptible to the pitfall (in principle), but also how several alleged top-down effects actually are explained by the pitfall (in practice). Moreover, these pitfalls are perfectly general, with each applying to dozens of other top-down effects. We conclude by extracting the lessons provided by these pitfalls into a checklist that future work could use to convincingly demonstrate top-down effects on visual perception. The discovery of substantive top-down effects of cognition on perception would revolutionize our understanding of how the mind is organized; but without addressing these pitfalls, no such empirical report will license such exciting conclusions.

How "Paternalistic" Is Spatial Perception? Why Wearing a Heavy Backpack Doesn't-and Couldn't-Make Hills Look Steeper

A chief goal of perception is to help us navigate our environment. According to a rich and ambitious theory of spatial perception, the visual system achieves this goal not by aiming to accurately depict the external world, but instead by actively distorting the environment's perceived spatial layout to bias action selection toward favorable outcomes. Scores of experimental results have supported this view-including, famously, a report that wearing a heavy backpack makes hills look steeper. This perspective portrays the visual system as unapologetically paternalistic: Backpacks make hills harder to climb, so vision steepens them to discourage ascent. The "paternalistic" theory of spatial perception has, understandably, attracted controversy; if true, it would radically revise our understanding of how and why we see. Here, this view is subjected to a kind and degree of scrutiny it has yet to face. After characterizing and motivating the case for paternalistic vision, I expose several unexplored defects in its theoretical framework, arguing that extant accounts of how and why spatial perception is ability-sensitive are deeply problematic and that perceptual phenomenology belies the view's claims. The paternalistic account of spatial perception not only isn't true-it couldn't be true, even if its empirical findings were accepted at face value.

Approach and Avoidance as Organizing Structures for Motivated Distance Perception

Emerging demonstrations of the malleability of distance perception in affective situations require an organizing structure. These effects can be predicted by approach and avoidance orientation. Approach reduces perceptions of distance; avoidance exaggerates perceptions of distance. Moreover, hedonic valence, motivational intensity, and perceiver arousal cannot alone serve as organizing principles. Organizing the literature based on approach and avoidance can reconcile seeming inconsistent effects in the literature, and offers these motives as psychological mechanisms by which affective situations predict perceptions of distance. Moreover, this perspective complements functional models of perception claiming perceptions of distance serve adaptive responding, and in so doing suggests why perceptions of distance respond to affective situations. This review contributes to the building of a broader theory of motivated distance perception.

Conditions under which arousal does and does not elevate height estimates

We present a series of experiments that explore the boundary conditions for how emotional arousal influences height estimates. Four experiments are presented, which investigated the influence of context, situation-relevance, intensity, and attribution of arousal on height estimates. In Experiment 1, we manipulated the environmental context to signal either danger (viewing a height from above) or safety (viewing a height from below). High arousal only increased height estimates made from above. In Experiment 2, two arousal inductions were used that contained either 1) height-relevant arousing images or 2) height-irrelevant arousing images. Regardless of theme, arousal increased height estimates compared to a neutral group. In Experiment 3, arousal intensity was manipulated by inserting an intermediate or long delay between the induction and height estimates. A brief, but not a long, delay from the arousal induction served to increase height estimates. In Experiment 4, an attribution manipulation was included, and those participants who were made aware of the source of their arousal reduced their height estimates compared to participants who received no attribution instructions. Thus, arousal that is attributed to its true source is discounted from feelings elicited by the height, thereby reducing height estimates. Overall, we suggest that misattributed, embodied arousal is used as a cue when estimating heights from above that can lead to overestimation.

Affect-related synesthesias: a prospective view on their existence, expression and underlying mechanisms

The literature on developmental synesthesia has seen numerous sensory combinations, with surprisingly few reports on synesthesias involving affect. On the one hand, emotion, or more broadly affect, might be of minor importance to the synesthetic experience (e.g., Sinke et al., 2012). On the other hand, predictions on how affect could be relevant to the synesthetic experience remain to be formulated, in particular those that are driven by emotion theories. In this theoretical paper, we hypothesize that a priori studies on synesthesia involving affect will observe the following. Firstly, the synesthetic experience is not merely about discrete emotion processing or overall valence (positive, negative) but is determined by or even altered through cognitive appraisal processes. Secondly, the synesthetic experience changes temporarily on a quantitative level according to (i) the affective appraisal of the inducing stimulus or (ii) the current affective state of the individual. These hypotheses are inferred from previous theoretical and empirical accounts on synesthesia (including the few examples involving affect), different emotion theories, crossmodal processing accounts in synesthetes, and non-synesthetes, and the presumed stability of the synesthetic experience. We hope that the current review will succeed in launching a new series of studies on "affective synesthesias." We particularly hope that such studies will apply the same creativity in experimental paradigms as we have seen and still see when assessing and evaluating "traditional" synesthesias.

The Polarizing Effect of Arousal on Negotiation

In this research, we examined the impact of physiological arousal on negotiation outcomes. Conventional wisdom and the prescriptive literature suggest that arousal should be minimized given its negative effect on negotiations, whereas prior research on misattribution of arousal suggests that arousal might polarize outcomes, either negatively or positively. In two experiments, we manipulated arousal and measured its effect on subjective and objective negotiation outcomes. Our results support the polarization effect. When participants had negative prior attitudes toward negotiation, arousal had a detrimental effect on outcomes, whereas when participants had positive prior attitudes toward negotiation, arousal had a beneficial effect on outcomes. These effects occurred because of the construal of arousal as negative or positive affect, respectively. Our findings have important implications not only for negotiation, but also for research on misattribution of arousal, which previously has focused on the target of evaluation, in contrast to the current research, which focused on the critical role of the perceiver.

Effects of Implementation Intentions on Anxiety, Perceived Proximity, and Motor Performance

Anxiety leads to exaggerated perceptions of distance, which may impair performance on a physical task. In two studies, we tested one strategy to reduce anxiety and induce perceived proximity to increase performance. We predicted implementation intentions that reduce anxiety would increase perceived visual proximity to goal-relevant targets, which would indirectly improve performance. In two studies, we induced performance anxiety on a physical task. Participants who formed implementation intentions to reduce anxiety perceived goal-relevant targets (e.g., golf hole, dartboard) as physically closer and performed better than both participants without a strategy (Study 1) and participants with only a goal to regulate anxiety (Study 2). Furthermore, perceived proximity improved performance indirectly by increasing subjective task ease (Study 2). Results suggest that implementation intentions can reduce anxiety and lead to perceived proximity of goal-relevant targets, which helps perceivers make progress on goals.

From early sensory specialization to later perceptual generalization: dynamic temporal progression in perceiving individual threats

Threat evokes a variety of negative emotions such as fear, anger, and disgust. Whereas they elicit distinct and even opposite facial, sensory, and autonomic reflexes, threat-related emotions often converge in the actions they prompt (e.g., negative evaluation and avoidance). Here, we tested a unifying hypothesis that threat processing initially involves specialized encoding of individual subtypes to support discrete reflexive operations that later gives way to generalized elaborate analysis to facilitate convergent defensive behavior. Combining event-related potentials (ERPs) and a defensive context in human subjects, we compared temporal courses of perceptual analysis of two threat subtypes-fear and disgust. Indeed, fear enhanced and disgust suppressed early (115 ms) response in visual cortex, accentuating specialized sensory encoding of threat subtypes in accordance with the opposite behavioral and autonomic reflexes they typically elicit. By contrast, later ERP waveforms evoked by fear and disgust merged gradually over time (130-425 ms). Consistently, visual ERPs to anthropomorphic Greeble objects presented after fear versus disgust images also overlapped despite their clear departure from the neutral condition, paralleled by comparable exaggeration in Greeble imminence perception in the two threat (vs neutral) conditions. This later confluence of neural and behavioral response between fear and disgust thus highlights general threat categorization in high-level, downstream perception of threat. By delineating the temporal dynamics in perceiving individual threat emotions, our findings thus provide some of the first evidence to reconcile multidimensional and unidimensional aspects of information processing within the domain of threat, shedding new light on symptom heterogeneity across the anxiety disorder spectrum.

Out of sight but not out of mind: unseen affective faces influence evaluations and social impressions

Using Continuous Flash Suppression (CFS), we demonstrated in four experiments that affective information extracted from unseen faces influences both affective and personality judgments of neutral faces. In four experiments, participants judged neutral faces as more pleasant or unpleasant (Studies 1 and 2) or as more or less trustworthy, likable, and attractive (Study 3) or as more or less competent or interpersonally warm (Study 4) when paired with unseen smiling or scowling faces compared to when paired with unseen neutral faces. These findings suggest that affective influences are a normal part of everyday experience and provide evidence for the affective foundations consciousness. Affective misattribution arises even when affective changes occur after a neutral stimulus is presented, demonstrating that these affective influences cannot be explained as a simple semantic priming effect. These findings have implications for understanding the constructive nature of experience, as well as the role of affect in social impressions.

Processing of emotional distraction is both automatic and modulated by attention: evidence from an event-related fMRI investigation

Traditionally, emotional stimuli have been thought to be automatically processed via a bottom-up automatic "capture of attention" mechanism. Recently, this view has been challenged by evidence that emotion processing depends on the availability of attentional resources. Although these two views are not mutually exclusive, direct evidence reconciling them is lacking. One limitation of previous investigations supporting the traditional or competing views is that they have not systematically investigated the impact of emotional charge of task-irrelevant distraction in conjunction with manipulations of attentional demands. Using event-related fMRI, we investigated the nature of emotion-cognition interactions in a perceptual discrimination task with emotional distraction by manipulating both the emotional charge of the distracting information and the demands of the main task. Our findings show that emotion processing is both automatic and modulated by attention, but emotion and attention were only found to interact when finer assessments of emotional charge (comparison of most vs. least emotional conditions) were considered along with an effective manipulation of processing load (high vs. low). The study also identified brain regions reflecting the detrimental impact of emotional distraction on performance as well as regions involved in coping with such distraction. Activity in the dorsomedial pFC and ventrolateral pFC was linked to a detrimental impact of emotional distraction, whereas the dorsal ACC and lateral occipital cortex were involved in helping with emotional distraction. These findings demonstrate that task-irrelevant emotion processing is subjective to both the emotional content of distraction and the level of attentional demand.

Plunging into the pool of death: imagining a dangerous outcome influences distance perception

We examined whether manipulating the imagined consequences of falling would influence the perception of height, distance, and size. In experiment 1, height and size perception were measured when participants stood at a short height (0.89 m) or a medium height (1.91 m) above either an empty pool or a pool filled with a bed of nails. Participants who viewed the bed of nails and imagined falling into it estimated both the height as taller and the size of the bed of nails as larger than participants who imagined falling into an empty pool. In a second experiment, participants overestimated the horizontal ground distance to and across the bed of nails after being told to imagine jumping over it. Overall, these experiments suggest that costs associated with imagined actions can influence the perception of both vertical and horizontal extents that are not inherently dangerous.

Emotion and perception: the role of affective information

Visual perception and emotion are traditionally considered separate domains of study. In this article, however, we review research showing them to be less separable than usually assumed. In fact, emotions routinely affect how and what we see. Fear, for example, can affect low-level visual processes, sad moods can alter susceptibility to visual illusions, and goal-directed desires can change the apparent size of goal-relevant objects. In addition, the layout of the physical environment, including the apparent steepness of a hill and the distance to the ground from a balcony can both be affected by emotional states. We propose that emotions provide embodied information about the costs and benefits of anticipated action, information that can be used automatically and immediately, circumventing the need for cogitating on the possible consequences of potential actions. Emotions thus provide a strong motivating influence on how the environment is perceived. WIREs Cogni Sci 2011 2 676-685 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.147 This article is categorized under: Psychology > Emotion and Motivation.

Perceiving children's behavior and reaching limits in a risk environment

The purpose of this study was to investigate the accuracy of parents' perception of children's reaching limits in a risk scenario. A sample of 68 parents of 1- to 4-year-olds were asked to make a prior estimate of their children's behavior and action limits in a task that involved retrieving a toy out of the water. The action modes used for reaching, accuracy of estimates, and error tendency were investigated. Several morphological variables, walking experience, and swimming program experience were analyzed as predictors of maximum and estimated maximum reachability. Most children sat to retrieve the toy out of the water and fell in while attempting to grasp beyond their reaching limit. Nearly 80% of the parents correctly predicted their children's behavior when the toy was unreachable. Parents were cautious in predicting their children's maximum reachability (>50% underestimates). Mothers were more accurate than fathers in estimating their children's reaching limit. The prediction of children's capabilities was based partially on body dimensions and proportions.

A little bit louder now: negative affect increases perceived loudness

Traditionally, perception was considered to be an encapsulated process that was unaffected by top-down processes like affect. Recent work in vision draws this framework into question by showing that changes in the affective state of the perceiver can impact many different aspects of visual perception. Here, we extend the relationship between affect and perception into another perceptual modality: audition. Participants were induced into a negative or neutral mood by writing about a frightening or neutral experience in their past. They then listened to a series of short, neutral tones (320 and 640 ms) and rated the loudness and duration of the tones. Participants in a negative mood rated the tones as significantly louder, but not longer, than participants in a neutral mood, suggesting that the difference between the groups was perceptual rather than just a response bias. This research shows for the first time that the role of affect in perceptual processes may be more pervasive than previously considered.

Follow your heart: Emotion adaptively influences perception

The current review introduces a new program of research that suggests the perception of spatial layout is influenced by emotions. Though perceptual systems are often described as closed and insulated, this review presents research suggesting that a variety of induced emotions (e.g., fear, disgust, sadness) can produce changes in vision and audition. Thus, the perceptual system may be highly interconnected, allowing emotional information to influence perceptions that, in turn, influence cognition. The body of work presented here also suggests that emotion-based changes in perception help us solve particular adaptive problems because emotion does not change all perceptions of the world. Taking the adaptive significance of emotion into account allows us to make predictions about when and how emotion influences perception.

State estimation bias induced by optimization under uncertainty and error cost asymmetry is likely reflected in perception

It is well known from numerous studies that perception can be significantly affected by intended action in many everyday situations, indicating that perception and related decision-making is not a simple, one-way sequence, but a complex iterative cognitive process. However, the underlying functional mechanisms are yet unclear. Based on an optimality approach, a quantitative computational model of one such mechanism has been developed in this study. It is assumed in the model that significant uncertainty about task-related parameters of the environment results in parameter estimation errors and an optimal control system should minimize the cost of such errors in terms of the optimality criterion. It is demonstrated that, if the cost of a parameter estimation error is significantly asymmetrical with respect to error direction, the tendency to minimize error cost creates a systematic deviation of the optimal parameter estimate from its maximum likelihood value. Consequently, optimization of parameter estimate and optimization of control action cannot be performed separately from each other under parameter uncertainty combined with asymmetry of estimation error cost, thus making the certainty equivalence principle non-applicable under those conditions. A hypothesis that not only the action, but also perception itself is biased by the above deviation of parameter estimate is supported by ample experimental evidence. The results provide important insights into the cognitive mechanisms of interaction between sensory perception and planning an action under realistic conditions. Implications for understanding related functional mechanisms of optimal control in the CNS are discussed.

A balancing act: physical balance, through arousal, influences size perception

Previous research has demonstrated that manipulating vision influences balance. Here, we question whether manipulating balance can influence vision and how it may influence vision--specifically, the perception of width. In Experiment 1, participants estimated the width of beams while balanced and unbalanced. When unbalanced, participants judged the widths to be smaller. One possible explanation is that unbalanced participants did not view the stimulus as long as when balanced because they were focused on remaining balanced. In Experiment 2, we tested this notion by limiting viewing time. Experiment 2 replicated the findings of Experiment 1, but viewing time had no effect on width judgments. In Experiment 3, participants' level of arousal was manipulated, because the balancing task likely produced arousal. While jogging, participants judged the beams to be smaller. In Experiment 4, participants completed another arousing task (counting backward by sevens) that did not involve movement. Again, participants judged the beams to be smaller when aroused. Experiment 5A raised participants' level of arousal before estimating the board widths (to control for potential dual-task effects) and showed that heightened arousal still influenced perceived width of the boards. Collectively, heightened levels of arousal, caused by multiple manipulations (including balance), influenced perceived width.