Department of Psychology, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom.
Emotion. 2012 Feb;12(1):18-22. doi: 10.1037/a0024495. Epub 2011 Jul 25.
It has been suggested that downward pointing triangles convey negative valence, perhaps because they mimic an underlying primitive feature present in negative facial expressions (Larson, Aronoff, and Stearns, 2007). Here, we test this proposition using a flanker interference paradigm in which participants indicated the valence of a central face target, presented between two adjacent distracters. Experiment 1 showed that, compared with face flankers, downward pointing triangles had little influence on responses to face targets. However, in Experiment 2, when attentional competition was increased between target and flankers, downward pointing triangles slowed responses to positively valenced face targets, and speeded them to negatively valenced targets, consistent with valence-based flanker compatibility effects. These findings provide converging evidence that simple geometric shapes may convey emotional valence.
有人认为，朝下的三角形传达负面的含义，可能是因为它们模仿了负面面部表情中存在的一种基本特征（Larson、Aronoff 和 Stearns，2007）。在这里，我们使用一种侧翼干扰范式来检验这一假设，参与者在中央面部目标（位于两个相邻的干扰物之间）呈现时，表明其情绪价值。实验 1 表明，与面部侧翼相比，朝下的三角形对朝向面部目标的反应几乎没有影响。然而，在实验 2 中，当目标和侧翼之间的注意力竞争增加时，朝下的三角形会减缓对正面情绪的面部目标的反应速度，而加快对负面情绪的面部目标的反应速度，这与基于情绪的侧翼兼容性效应一致。这些发现提供了一致的证据，表明简单的几何形状可能传达情绪价值。
