I will write I Love you on... a symmetrical pattern!

An ERP evidence of affective congruency between pattern regularity and word valence

Giulia Rampone, Alexis Makin & Marco Bertaminigiulia@liverpool.ac.uk

• We observed an association between symmetry and positive valence starting from 250ms from onset.• The “congruency effect” was evident only when words were attended and task-irrelevant patterns remained

in the background.

Introduction Experiment

Methods

Experiment 1N= 24

Task 1: “Discriminate Regularity” [144 trials]participants classified regularity: Symmetry or Random?

Task 2: “Discriminate Word” [144 trials]participants classified word valence: Positive or Negative?

Experiment 2N= 24

One task [288 trials] Participants attended to both regularity and word valence simultaneously

Electrodes selected for the analysis:

The order of the task was balanced between participants

Task 1: “Discriminate Regularity” Task 2: “Discriminate Word”

SPN (250-1000 ms)

Random Positive – Random Negative

Reflection Positive – Reflection Negative

Experiment 1 Experiment 2

Am

plitu

de +

/- 1

.5μ

v

Random Positive– Random Negative

Reflection Positive – Reflection Negative

SPN* (250-1000 ms)

N1 (170-200 ms)

P1 (100-130 ms)Strong

difference

between

Reflection and

Random,

P <.001

Weaker

differen

ce P =.05

p = .07

“Congruency

Effect”

For reflection

patterns,

p=.005

No effect with

Random patterns! :-

(

No

congruency

effect No effects!

P <.001

Symmetry is associated with beauty and positive valence both on explicit and implicit behavioural tasks. This study investigated the neural correlates of this association. Participants saw symmetric [reflection] and random patterns with either positive or negative words superimposed. We recorded ERP from posterior clusters of electrodes.We expected a “congruency effect” for reflection with positive words and random with negative words on the Sustained Posterior Negativity (SPN), a symmetry-specific component. In Experiment 1 pattern regularity or word valence were classified in two separate blocks. In Experiment 2 participants attended to both on each trial.

Results

Reflection – Random

We suggest that this is due to the fact that word valence is easier and faster to evaluate, allowing time and resources to process the valence of the pattern.

Discussion

Conclusion

Bertamini M, Makin A, Pecchinenda A (2013a) Testing Whether and When Abstract Symmetric Patterns Produce Affective Responses. PLoS ONE 8(7): e68403. Bertamini, M., Makin, A., & Rampone, G. (2013b). Implicit association of symmetry with positive valence, high arousal and simplicity. i-Perception, 4(5), 317--327.Hofel, L., & Jacobsen, T. (2007a). Electrophysiological indices of processing aesthetics: Spontaneous or intentional processes? [Article]. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 65(1), 20-31 Makin, A. D., Rampone, G., Pecchinenda, A., & Bertamini, M. (2013). Electrophysiological responses to visuospatial regularity. Psychophysiology. Makin, A. D. J., Pecchinenda, A., & Bertamini, M. (2012a). Implicit affective evaluation of visual symmetry. Emotion, 12(5), 1021-1030. Makin, A. D. J., Wilton, M. M., Pecchinenda, A., & Bertamini, M. (2012b). Symmetry perception and affective responses: A combined EEG/EMG study. Neuropsychologia,50(14), 3250-3261. Scott, G. G., O.Donnell, P. J., Leuthold, H., & Sereno, S. C. (2009). Early emotion word processing: Evidence from event-related potentials. Biological psychology, 80(1), 95--104.

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References