RESEARCH REPORT

The activation of representative emotional verbal contextsinteracts with vertical spatial axis

Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos • Pedro R. Montoro •

Marıa Rosa Elosua • Marıa Jose Contreras •

William Alejandro Jimenez-Jimenez

Received: 22 July 2013 / Accepted: 13 May 2014

� Marta Olivetti Belardinelli and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

Abstract Several experimental studies have shown that

there exists an association between emotion words and the

vertical spatial axis. However, the specific conditions under

which this conceptual–physical interaction emerges are

still unknown, and no study has been devised to test

whether longer linguistic units than words can lead to a

mapping of emotions on vertical space. In Experiment 1,

Spanish and Colombian participants performed a repre-

sentative verbal emotional contexts production task (RVEC

task) requiring participants to produce RVEC for the

emotions of joy, sadness, surprise, anger, fear, and disgust.

The results showed gender and cultural differences

regarding the average number of RVEC produced. The

most representative contexts of joy and sadness obtained in

Experiment 1 were used in Experiment 2 in a novel spatial–

emotional congruency verification task (SECV task). After

reading a sentence, the participants had to judge whether a

probe word, displayed in either a high or low position on

the screen, was congruent or incongruent with the previous

sentence. The question was whether the emotion induced

by the sentence could modulate the responses to the probes

as a function of their position in a vertical axis by means of

a metaphorical conceptual–spatial association. Overall, the

results indicate that a mapping of emotions on vertical

space can occur for linguistic units larger than words, but

only when the task demands an explicit affective evalua-

tion of the target.

Keywords Emotions � Verbal emotional contexts �Embodiment � Spatial cognition � Metaphorical mapping �Social cognition

Introduction

Having a good time with friends, excelling in an exam, or

achieving goals can be sources of joy. Many other situa-

tions can arouse that same emotion or variations of it, and

those situations can be encapsulated in the form of emotion

words and concepts. Moreover, gender and cultural dif-

ferences can lead to different ways of understanding and

expressing emotions. Specifically, the number and types of

situations associated with emotion words can be affected

by such factors. Despite the potential effects of gender and

culture on the comprehension and production of emotions,

some experimental studies (Meier and Robinson 2004,

2006; Santiago et al. 2012) suggest that there exists an

association between emotional valence and vertical space

such that positive emotion words are mapped onto high

spatial locations and negative emotion words are mapped

onto low spatial locations. However, the specific conditions

under which this conceptual–physical interaction emerges

are still unknown, and no study has been devised to test

whether longer linguistic units than words can lead to a

mapping of emotions on vertical space.

In the present work, Experiment 1 was designed to

determine whether gender and cultural factors have an

This article is part of the Special Section on ‘‘Embodied Social

Cognition’’, guest-edited by Fernando Marmolejo Ramos andAmedeo

Dangiulli.

F. Marmolejo-Ramos (&)

Faculty of Health Sciences, School of Psychology,

University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5005, Australia

e-mail: fernando.marmolejoramos@adelaide.edu.au

P. R. Montoro � M. R. Elosua � M. J. Contreras

National University of Distance Education (UNED),

Madrid, Spain

W. A. Jimenez-Jimenez

University of Boyaca, Tunja, Colombia

123

Cogn Process

DOI 10.1007/s10339-014-0620-6

effect on the number of representative verbal emotional

contexts (RVEC) produced for six different emotion words

(joy, sadness, surprise, anger, fear, and disgust). The most

frequent contexts generated in Experiment 1 for two spe-

cific emotions (joy and sadness) were used in Experiment 2

to examine whether a mapping between emotions and

vertical space can occur for linguistic units larger than

words.

Emotions and embodiment

Emotion concepts have been researched extensively, par-

ticularly in relation to abstract and concrete concepts (see

Altarriba and Bauer 2004), and have become a topic of

particular interest in the embodied cognition framework

(e.g. Niedenthal et al. 2005, 2009; see also Meteyard et al.

2012). Specifically, it has been argued that abstract and

emotion concepts have sensorimotor properties much like

concrete concepts; yet, this claim is still a matter of debate.

For example, while some research has shown that the

motor system is engaged during the processing of concrete

and abstract words (e.g. Glenberg et al. 2008a, b), other

work suggests that such a system is not activated during the

processing of abstract words (e.g. Raposo et al. 2009). As

to the processing of emotion concepts, research is also

inconclusive, in that while some research suggests that both

perceptual and motor systems are activated (Moseley et al.

2012), other research suggests that only perceptual systems

are necessary (Jacob and Jeannerod 2005; Marmolejo-Ra-

mos and Dunn 2013).

In the recent review of Meteyard et al. (2012), four

relevant theories of semantic representation (based on

neuroscientific and neuropsychological evidence that

enable stating clear predictions) are placed on a continuum

from ‘‘strong embodiment’’ to completely ‘‘unembodied’’

(in which semantic information is symbolic/amodal, with

complete independence from modal content and no

neuroanatomical overlap with sensory-motor systems).

These authors conclude that the empirical evidence sup-

ports neither strongly embodied nor completely disem-

bodied theories and that the two remaining theories

(referred to as ‘‘secondary embodiment’’ and ‘‘weak

embodiment’’) agree that sensory and motor information is

activated when a semantic representation is accessed.

Most of the work on the processing of emotion, abstract,

and concrete concepts from an embodied standpoint has

used words as the typical experimental stimuli. However,

more recently, experimental studies have started to use

multi-word materials in order to unveil the cognitive and

neural processes behind the comprehension of abstract and

concrete concepts (e.g. Sakreida et al. 2013). Since emo-

tion, abstract, and concrete words can be seen as encap-

sulated forms of larger linguistic units, it is therefore

necessary to unpack the descriptions, definitions, and sce-

narios that give rise to these words. One of the first studies

whose goal was to categorise the verbal contexts associated

with emotion words was carried out in Spain in the late

1980s. Elosua and Gonzalez (1989) investigated the type

and number of representative verbal contexts generated for

the emotions of joy, sadness, surprise, anger, fear, and

disgust. The researchers found that more than 30 % of the

participants in the study generated common representative

contexts for joy, sadness, and surprise, while it was not the

case for the other emotions (the ‘‘30 %’’ has been used as a

standard benchmark in this kind of studies, according to

Rosch et al. 1976). The work of Elosua and Gonzalez

(1989) leaves the door open for further research on the

semantic representation of representative contexts as

associated with emotions. For example, it might be the case

that the number and types of representative verbal contexts

might be influenced by factors such as gender and culture.

Emotions, social cognition, gender, and culture

The results found by these researchers have direct impli-

cations for the role in social cognition played by situations

leading to the arousal of emotions. In referring to the sit-

uations or contexts in which emotions emerge, it is also

necessary to refer to actions that occur during those situ-

ations. Thus, an understanding of both emotion and of the

associated experience requires the activation of neural

mechanisms deployed during the comprehension of actions

performed during social behaviour (Gallese et al. 2004). In

other words, being able to understand and reproduce

socially relevant information requires both cognitive and

emotional processes in order to make sense of the actions

that sustain social situations. Consequently, whenever a

person gives a specific emotional label to a social situation,

a net of associated actions, perceptions, and cognitions is

attached to the emotional label (Adolphs 2001).

Some studies (Brebner 2003; Brody and Hall 2008;

Carou et al. 2011; Milovchevich et al. 2001; Neel et al.

2012; Shields 2000) have reported gender differences

between men and women in the processing of emotions.

The results are usually interpreted in terms that gender

differences are learned and differ across societies. For

instance, Brebner (2003) found that Australian and inter-

national participants had gender differences in self-reports

of the frequency in emotions such as joy, sadness, anger,

and fear, with females providing more reports for emotions

than males. Regarding the emotion of anger, some

researchers (Brebner 2003; Milovchevich et al. 2001; Neel

et al. 2012) have found that men experience this emotion

more often than women.

Additionally, it has been shown that cultural context

plays an important role in the way emotions are categorised

Cogn Process

123

and communicated (Basabe et al. 2000; Fernandez et al.

2000, 2008; Ko et al. 2011; Russell 1991; Russell and

Barrett 1999; Shaver et al. 1987). Philippot and Rime

(1997) present a comprehensive review of cross-cultural

studies on the perception of bodily sensations during

emotion processing. Their review indicates that people can

access representations of social situations that define the

bodily sensations whenever they are asked to recall specific

emotions, but differences can occur due to cultural factors.

A cross-cultural study with participants from four different

countries showed that a set of emotions was characterised

by specific patterns of bodily sensations and that culture

modulated the resulting profiles. For instance, while Italian

participants reported fewer throat and breathing symptoms

for anger compared to North American participants, North

American participants reported greater temperature

increase for joy, anger, and fear than Belgians, Bolivians,

and Italians (see Rime 2011). Even though the results

reported by these researchers are useful in understanding

the bodily perceptions of emotions, more research is nee-

ded to understand how emotions are put into language,

particularly in relation to the perceptual and motor prop-

erties verbalised in relation to emotion contexts (see Saxbe

et al. 2012).

Other factors that could determine not only the types of

social situations associated with emotions, but the fre-

quency of situations generated could be determined by the

level of happiness and overall life satisfaction of people

living in specific countries. Inglehart et al. (2008) argue

that the level of happiness of any society is regulated by the

extent to which that society allows free choice. Free choice,

in turn, is characterised by economic development,

democratization, and increasing social tolerance. By per-

forming regression analyses on available data from

national surveys carried out from 1981 to 2007 in 52

countries, these researchers found that the subjective well-

being (as measured by levels of happiness) of any society is

positively correlated with the society’s level of free choice.

That is, the more free choice a country has, the higher the

subjective well-being and vice versa. However, as reported

in Fig. 2 in Inglehart et al. (2008), there are countries that

have higher economic development than others but that

exhibit lower levels of happiness. For instance, while Spain

showed a per capita gross domestic product higher than

Colombia, Colombia had a subjective well-being higher

than Spain. Thus, it could be entertained that well-being

indices as well as the goods and services produced within a

country could explain potential differences in the number

and types of verbal contexts generated for emotion words.

Specifically, it could be possible that the financial wealth of

a country shapes the goods people can afford, which in turn

might lead to associate certain emotions with specific

desired physical objects and environments. Furthermore,

subjective well-being, regardless of the financial wealth of

the society, can also affect the generation of verbal con-

texts for emotions by determining the specific features that

a social situation needs to have in order to be assigned an

emotional label.

Emotions and locations in space

It has been argued that abstract concepts can acquire per-

ceptual and motor properties when they are mapped onto

concrete concepts (see Wiemer-Hastings and Xu 2005). As

recent research shows, emotion concepts are associated

with abstract concepts in that emotional content influences

the processing and representation of abstract concepts

(Kousta et al. 2011). Thus, it can be entertained that

emotion words gain perceptual and motor properties

through being mapped onto concrete concepts. Recently,

Marmolejo-Ramos et al. (2013; Experiment 2) had English

and Japanese participants implicitly mapping negative and

positive personality trait words onto vertical and horizontal

spatial coordinates. The results showed a saliency of the

vertical plane over the horizontal plane in that while

positive words were placed in upward positions, negative

words were placed in downward positions, and although

positive words were placed in rightward positions and

negative words in leftward positions, such difference was

not statistically significant. Such results hint at the idea that

emotionally valenced words can be mapped onto spatial

coordinates, particularly in relation to the vertical plane. As

recent research has shown, such an association seems to

exist (e.g. Ansorge and Bohner 2013; Ansorge et al. 2013);

however, an association between valenced words and the

horizontal plane seems to occur only when the task requires

an explicit response mapping (de la Vega et al. 2012).

These results suggest that while an association between

valenced words and the vertical plane seems to be auto-

matic, an association between these words and the hori-

zontal plane is not.

It has also been shown that there is an association

between emotionally valenced concepts and the vertical

plane (e.g. Gozli et al. 2013; Meier and Robinson 2004;

Meier et al. 2011; Santiago et al. 2012). For instance, Meier

et al. (2011) found that the abstract concepts of north and

south, which are metaphorically linked to up and down

locations, were, in housing terms, associated with location

preference and assumptions about of where others live.

Specifically, participants evaluated living in northern

locations as more positive than living in southern ones.

These results provide further evidence as to the meta-

phorical mapping between vertical locations and emo-

tionally valenced concepts. However, it is still open to

investigation whether specific emotion concepts that relate

to emotional states follow a similar mapping. More

Cogn Process

123

importantly, as most, if not all, of the research demon-

strating such an association has used only words as

experimental material, it is unknown whether that associ-

ation would extend to larger linguistic units.

To summarize, Experiment 1 examined whether gender

and cultural factors have an effect on the number of RVEC

produced for six different emotion words (joy, sadness,

surprise, anger, fear, and disgust). The most representative

contexts of joy and sadness obtained in Experiment 1 were

used in Experiment 2 to study whether a mapping between

emotions and vertical space can occur for linguistic units

larger than words in a novel spatial–emotional congruency

verification (SECV) task.

Experiment 1

Experiment 1 aims at replicating and extending the results

obtained by Elosua and Gonzalez (1989) regarding the task

of production of RVEC for six emotions joy, sadness,

surprise, anger, fear, and disgust in two cultural contexts

(Spain and Colombia). Data from Spanish participants will

also validate the more representative sentential emotional

contexts regarding emotions of joy and sadness required for

Experiment 2.

The specific aims of Experiment 1 were the following:

(1) To determine whether the emotions such as joy, sad-

ness, surprise, anger, fear, and disgust have RVEC pro-

duced by at least 30 % of participants in Spain and

Colombia; (2) to examine whether there are significant

differences in relation to the number1 of RVEC given by

participants from two different cultural contexts (Spain and

Colombia); (3) to examine whether there are significant

differences between the number of RVEC given by females

and males in each of the two cultural contexts; and (4) to

obtain the 10 more RVEC regarding emotions of joy and

sadness required for Experiment 2.

The first hypothesis was that if there are RVEC for each

of the six emotions, at least 30 % of participants will

produce them in the two cultural contexts (according to the

standard procedure used by Rosch et al. 1976). It is pos-

sible that the RVEC may be obtained for some emotions

only (see Elosua and Gonzalez 1989) or for the six

emotions.

The second hypothesis predicted that women would

produce a higher total and average RVEC than men. The

third hypothesis was that if culture is a determining factor,

Spaniards or Colombians would produce a higher total and

average RVEC.

Method

Participants

One hundred and forty students participated in this exper-

iment: seventy students (35 women and 35 men,

agerange = 18–25 years, Mage = 18.97, SDage = 1.61)

from Madrid (Spain) and seventy students (35 women and

35 men, agerange = 18–22 years, Mage = 19.89,

SDage = 1.46) from Bogota (Colombia). All students vol-

unteered to take part in the study and/or received course

credit for their participation, and the experimental protocol

was approved by the Research Ethics Committees of the

institutions involved. These countries were selected based

on the findings of Inglehart et al. (2008) that they are two

very different cultures despite sharing the same language.

Materials and procedure

Participants received a six-sheet booklet, each sheet with

one of the six emotions written on the top in capital letters.

The order of the emotions in each booklet was randomised.

Each booklet had the following instruction ‘‘This is a very

simple task. It has to do with various situations in which we

feel or experience a specific emotion. For example, let’s do

it for the emotion of DISGUST. Please close your eyes and

imagine a very specific situation in which you feel or

experience deeply the emotion of DISGUST. Take your

time… Are you ready? Next, imagine another very specific

situation, different from the previous one, in which you

also feel or experience the emotion of DISGUST. Take

your time… Are you ready?’’ This exercise was repeated

with the emotions of surprise, joy, sadness, anger, and fear.

The booklet also directed participants to read the emotion

word on the top of each sheet, to remember their related

experiences, and to write below the emotion words all of

the specific situations in which they felt or experienced that

emotion. In the booklet, it was further indicated that par-

ticipants could spend as much time as needed to complete

the task and that it was important to list and remember very

specific situations in which the emotion at hand was

experienced. It was ensured that all participants understood

the task.

The experiment took place in a collective session in a

University classroom. Thus, Spanish participants gathered

in a classroom at UNED University (Spain), and Colom-

bian participants did so in a classroom at the University of

Boyaca (Colombia). The participants read the instructions

and self-paced the task in a collective session over a period

of approximately 25 min.

Once the task had been performed, the task instructions

and the original material were presented to three judges,

who were then asked to perform the following task: ‘‘Given

1 In the study reported herein, the focus is only on the number of

verbal contexts since potential qualitative differences require different

analyses that exceed the limits of this paper.

Cogn Process

123

the diversity of specific situations in which the subjects feel

or experience the different emotions, your task is to group

the contexts into categories and to determine which are the

contexts that, although expressed in a different manner,

refer to the same situation (category). This should follow

the general criterion to consider as the same context that

which is expressed in a different way but which refers to a

similar situation (category)’’. Hence, contexts such as

‘‘receive presents from others’’ and ‘‘receive affection from

others’’ were included in the category ‘‘receive and giving

affection from and to others’’. Judges did not receive pre-

defined categories nor the previous categories used by El-

osua and Gonzalez (1989) were considered. Therefore, the

new categories created by judges were formulated as they

were going along. An agreement among the three judges,

or at least between two of them, was sought in the appraisal

of each emotional context. Nonetheless, the consensus

between the judges was unanimous, and when nuances

were detected, which occurred rarely, a consensus between

the three judges was reached. Thus, the number of RVEC

common to one specific culture depended directly on the

judges’ task in determining whether a set of contexts

generated for an emotion could be grouped within one

category or distributed across several categories.

Results and discussion

A 2 (culture: Spain, Colombia) 9 2 (gender: males,

females) 9 6 (emotion: joy, sadness, surprise, anger, fear,

and disgust) ANOVA was performed. All the independent

variables, except ‘‘emotion’’, were between-subjects fac-

tors. The dependent variable was the number of represen-

tative verbal contexts generated for each of the six

emotions by each participant. The three judges determined

what qualified as an emotional context and what did not

and whether a group of contexts did in fact refer to one sole

context that was characteristic of a specific emotion (see

details above).

As Fig. 1 shows, the results of the average RVEC pro-

duced in Spain and Colombia showed significant main

effects of gender [F (1, 136) = 32.14, MSE = 1,094.85,

p \ .001, gp2 = .19], culture [F (1, 136) = 27.25,

MSE = 928.20, p \ .001, gp2 = .16], and emotion

[F (3.44, 468.15) = 41.93, MSE = 274.88, p \ .001,

gp2 = .23] which also had a three-way interaction [F (3.44,

468.15) = 5.57, MSE = 36.55, p \ .001, gp2 = .03]. There

were also significant two-way interactions between these

factors: emotion and culture [F (3.44, 468.15) = 6.98,

MSE = 45.78, p \ .001, gp2 = .04], emotion and gender

[F (3.44, 468.15) = 6.36, MSE = 41.74, p \ .001,

gp2 = .04], and gender and culture [F (1, 136) = 12.37,

MSE = 421.45, p \ .001, gp2 = .08]. Despite these 2-way

interactions being significant, visual analyses of these

interactions simply reaffirm the significant main effects

reported above and that are discussed in more detail below

(see Fig. 2a–c).2

The results of the main effects showed that, across

cultural groups, women produced more average RVEC

than men (Mfemales = 6.05, SEfemales = .28; Mmales =

3.77, SEmales = .28; Mdiff = 2.28, pBonferroni \ .001), that

a higher average number of RVEC were produced in the

Colombian sample (MColombia = 5.96, SEColombia = .28;

MSpain = 3.86, SESpain = .28; Mdiff = 2.10, pBonferroni

\ .001), and that the largest number of contexts was pro-

duced for the emotion joy and the smallest number was

produced for the emotion surprise (see Table 1).

Data from Spain showed that there were RVEC for the

six emotions produced by at least by 30 % of participants

according to the first hypothesis (see Table 1). This result

was also confirmed by Colombian participants, and it was

different to Elosua and Gonzalez (1989). In fact, after the

categorisation task of the three judges, the six emotions

appear to have at least one or more common RVEC pro-

duced at least by 30 % of participants.

As for gender effects, there were significant differences

between men and women in the total number of RVEC

produced [t(68) = -2.85, p \ .003] in Spanish partici-

pants. Women produced more RVEC (Mfemales = 25.77,

SDfemales = 8.15) than men (Mmales = 20.57,

SDmales = 7.10), as predicted by the second hypothesis. As

for Colombian participants, there were also significant

differences between men and women in the total number of

RVEC produced (t(68) = -4.96, p \ .001). Women pro-

duced more RVEC (Mfemales = 46.89, SDfemales = 21.64)

than men (Mmales = 24.69, SDmales = 15.25), as predicted

by the second hypothesis. Table 2 shows all of the signif-

icant differences between men and women in each one of

the six emotions as recorded by Spanish and Colombian

participants.

Our data from Spanish and Colombian participants

showed than women produced more RVEC than men

according to the second hypothesis. This finding confirmed

data obtained by Brebner (2003) and Fernandez et al.

(2000) in the sense that women were more expressive of

emotions than men. The only exception was the lack of

difference between Spanish men and women in recording

2 Figure 2A might suggest that while there was a significant

difference between males and women in the Colombian sample, this

was not the case in the Spanish sample. Welch pairwise tests showed

that those differences were significant in both cases [t(61.09) = 4.96,

p \ .001 (Colombiamale vs. females) and t(66.75) = 2.84, p = .005

(Spain male vs. females)], thus confirming our second hypothesis, i.e.

women produce more RVEC than men. Additionally, a Welch

pairwise test showed that there was no significant difference between

Colombian and Spanish males t(48.08) = 1.44, p = .15) in Fig. 2a.

Cogn Process

123

the anger emotion; although males produced more RVEC

than females, the difference was not statistically signifi-

cant. This result is coherent with some studies (Brebner

2003; Milovchevich et al. 2001; Neel et al. 2012) showing

that men express anger more often than women. It seems

that gender role practices affect the way in which men and

women regulate their anger in different social contexts (see

also Fischer and Evers 2010). Nevertheless, it cannot be

excluded that women might have been simply more moti-

vated that men to carry out a production task, regardless of

its relation to emotions, producing consequently more

sentences than men.

The third hypothesis was that if there are cultural

effects, Spanish or Colombian participants should produce

more total and average RVEC. As reported above, it was

found that Colombians produced more RVEC than

Spaniards, and such result is likely due to Colombian

women producing more RVEC than their male counterpart

(see Fig. 2a). A potential explanation for this result is

reported in a study by Inglehart et al. (2008; see Fig. 2).

Their results indicate that Colombians, despite having a

lower gross domestic product than Spaniards, have a

higher subjective sense of well-being. Indeed, as indicated

in Table 4 in Inglehart et al.’s paper, life satisfaction is

higher in Colombia than in Spain. Although such results

might explain the large number of positive contexts pro-

duced by the Colombian sample (e.g. for the emotion joy),

they do not explain the large number of negative RVEC

produced by that very same sample (e.g. for the emotion

anger). So, an alternate explanation is provided by other

studies (Basabe et al. 2000; Fernandez et al. 2008) indi-

cating that collectivist cultures (such as Colombia com-

pared to Spain) show high emotional expression,

particularly positive emotion (i.e. joy), but also in the case

of negative emotion (i.e. sadness) (once again, as shown

in Fig. 2a, this can be due to Colombian women produc-

ing more RVEC than any other group and gender). These

factors could have influenced the readiness with which

emotion contexts were generated by both groups of par-

ticipants. Furthermore, it could be entertained that the

experimenter could have had some sort of influence on the

Colombian sample, compared to the Spanish sample.

The most frequently produced RVEC for the emotions

joy and sadness in Spanish participants (see Table 3) were

used in Experiment 2.

Experiment 2

In the exploration of the role of physical metaphors in the

representation of abstract concepts, most previous studies

have made use of conceptual congruency tasks (see San-

tiago et al. 2012, for a review). Taking this further, we

designed a new spatial–emotional congruency verification

task (SECV) including sentences that recreated the most

representative contexts for the emotions of joy and sadness,

obtained specifically from Spanish participants (see

Tables 3, 4). After reading the sentence, the participants

had to judge whether a probe word, displayed in either a

high or low position on the screen, was congruent or

incongruent with the previous sentence.

The congruency between sentence and probe words was

manipulated so that it could be based on an emotional (by

means of emotional tags such as ‘‘JOY’’ and ‘‘SADNESS’’)

or non-emotional criterion (judging whether the proper

noun displayed had been the subject of the previous sen-

tence). The main question under consideration is whether

the emotion induced by the sentence could modulate the

Mea

n nu

mbe

r of

RV

EC

1

3

5

7

9

11

13

joy sadness surprise anger fear disgust joy sadness surprise anger fear disgust

Spain Colombia

FemaleMale

Fig. 1 Mean number of

representative verbal emotional

contexts (RVEC) generated by

Spanish and Colombian male

and female participants for six

emotions. The figure represents

the three-way interaction

between gender, culture, and

emotion

Cogn Process

123

responses to the probes as a function of their position in a

vertical axis, by means of a metaphorical conceptual–spa-

tial association. A second aim of the current study was to

examine the specific conditions under which this concep-

tual–physical interaction emerges if an access to the

emotion meaning of the context is required to observe an

interaction between affect and vertical axis.

The first hypothesis predicted that if the mere activation

of an emotional state is enough to generate a bias over the

processing of stimuli in certain spatial positions, then a

conceptual–spatial interactive effect extended to the non-

emotional probes should be observed. On the other hand, a

second hypothesis was that if an explicit evaluation of the

emotional valence of stimuli is required, then the concep-

tual–spatial interaction will be exclusively obtained with

the emotional probes.

Method

Participants

Thirty-nine undergraduate students (32 women and 7 men,

agerange = 19–63, Mage = 31.8, SDage = 11.4) from the

UNED (Spain) participated in the experiment and received

course credits for their participation. The experimental

protocol was approved by the UNED Research Ethics

Committee. All of them were native Spanish speakers and

reported to have normal or corrected-to-normal vision.

Four of the participants were left-handed, and the others

were right-handed.

Stimuli and apparatus

The stimuli were presented on 19-inch LCD–LED colour

monitors with a screen resolution of 1,024 9 768 pixels

controlled by microcomputers running E-Prime 1.2 soft-

ware (Psychology Software Tools 1996–2002). We used a

list of 20 sentences recreating the most representative

emotional contexts obtained from the Spanish sample: 10

sentences referring to joyful contexts and 10 referring to

sad contexts (see Table 4). The sentences had a simple

syntactic structure, consisting of subject, verb, and some

predicative complements, and a number of words oscil-

lating between five and eight to ensure a similar length. All

the subjects were proper nouns randomly selected from a

list of twenty possible nouns (ten male and ten female ones,

see Note in Table 4). The verbs were always presented in

the past tense to emphasise their emotional content. None

of the verbs was used in more than one sentence. The

proper nouns included in the sentences were depicted in

upper-case letters; the rest of words in lower-case letters.

All words in the sentences appeared in Arial Bold font,

point size 12. The sentences appeared at the centre of the

screen. The words used as probes consisted of two emo-

tional tags (‘‘ALEGRIA’’ [joy] and ‘‘TRISTEZA’’ [sad-

ness]) and the same proper nouns used as subjects in the

emotional sentences. All the probe words appeared in

upper-case Arial font letters with a 26-point size. Pre-

liminary pilots were conducted to ensure that observers

could read and recognize the probe words by peripheral

vision. The probe words could be displayed in one of two

11.3 9 3.0 cm boxes (10.8� 9 2.9� of visual angle), pre-

sented 8.0 cm (7.6� of visual angle) above and below the

centre of the screen (centre-to-centre). All the words were

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Spain Colombia

Male

Female

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

joy sadness surprise anger fear disgust

Male

Female

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

joy sadness surprise anger fear disgust

Spain

Colombia

A

B

C

Fig. 2 Two-way interactions between gender and culture (a), gender

and emotion (b), and emotion and culture (c), respectively (error bars

represent ±1 SE)

Cogn Process

123

printed in black and presented against a light grey back-

ground (‘‘silver’’ according to the E-Prime colour palette).

Procedure and design

Participants were tested individually in a dimly lit, quiet

room. Viewing distance was approximately 60 cm. They

were instructed to make their responses as quickly as

possible while making as few errors as possible. Each trial

started with the presentation of a 1 9 1 cm (.96� of visual

angle) cross-shape fixation mark at the centre of the screen

and two rectangular boxes above and below the fixation;

500 ms later, a sentence was presented for 2,000 ms at the

centre of the screen. Participants were instructed to read the

sentence with the twofold aim of (1) imaging the scene

described to identify its emotional valence (joy or sadness)

and, at the same time, (2) memorizing the proper noun

acting as grammatical subject. Next, the central cross-

shape fixation was displayed again on the screen. Partici-

pants were instructed to remain fixated on the cross until

the completion of the trial. After a variable time period

oscillating between 800 and 1,800 ms, randomly selected

by the program, the probe word was displayed for 200 ms

in one of the two boxes. The probe position was determined

at random in each trial but ensuring an equal proportion of

upper and lower trials in the experiment.

Participants were instructed to judge the congruency of

the probe word with the previous sentence based either on a

semantic relationship between the emotional meaning of

the sentence and the emotional tag (e.g. congruent: ‘‘SARA

failed a difficult exam—SADNESS’’; incongruent: ‘‘SARA

failed a difficult exam—JOY’’) or on the matching of the

proper noun displayed with that of the sentence (e.g. con-

gruent: ‘‘SARA failed a difficult exam—SARA’’; incon-

gruent: ‘‘SARA failed a difficult exam—LAURA’’).

Participants had to judge the congruency by pressing a

numerical keyboard button (number 1 or 2) using the

middle and index fingers of the dominant hand. The key-

finger assignment was counterbalanced across subjects.

After a maximum time of 2,000 ms to respond, the trial

was aborted and a message of ‘‘no response, try to respond

faster’’ was shown. The inter-trial interval was 500 ms, and

it began when subjects made their response. There were a

practice block and eight experimental blocks. Each

Table 1 Quantification of the representative verbal emotional contexts (RVEC) produced by the Spanish (S) and Colombian (C) participants for

six emotions

Emotion Total RVEC generated

(S) (Females/Males)

Total RVEC generated

(C) (Females/Males)

Average RVEC

(S ? C) (SE)

Max

RVEC

(S)

Max

RVEC

(C)

Max

RVEC

(S)

Max

RVEC

(C)

JOY 374 (220/154) 627 (415/212) 7.15 (.38) 50 62 5 7

FEAR 268 (116/127) 368 (245/123) 4.54 (.22) 42 69 4 3

SADNESS 259 (145/114) 385 (267/118) 4.60 (.22) 28 58 4 3

DISGUST 252 (140/112) 397 (239/158) 4.63 (.24) 64 82 1 2

ANGER 243 (150/118) 434 (302/132) 4.83 (.24) 41 79 3 3

SURPRISE 226 (131/95) 294 (173/121) 3.71 (.18) 32 58 4 2

The first two columns show the total raw number of RVEC produced by females and males in the S and C samples. The third column shows the

mean number of RVEC produced by the S and C samples combined (S ? C; SE = Standard Error). The fourth and fifth columns show the

maximum number of different categories RVEC produced for each emotion by the S and C samples. The sixth and seventh columns show the

maximum number of categories RVEC in S and C samples produced by at least 30 % of participants for each emotion. The emotions that

received the highest and lowest total and average amount of RVEC are in italics

Table 2 Mean representative verbal emotional contexts (RVEC) and the significant differences (using Student’s t test) produced by females and

males in Spain (S) and Colombia (C) for six emotions

Emotion Mean RVEC generated (S)

(females/males)

Statistics (t (df),

p value) (S)

Mean RVEC generated

(C) (females/males)

Statistics [t (df),

p value] (C)

Joy 6.29/4.40 t(68) = -2.84, p \ .001 11.86/6.06 t(68) = -4.21, p \ .001

Fear 4.29/3.37 t(68) = -2.45, p \ .009 7.00/3.51 t(68) = -4.16, p \ .001

Sadness 4.14/3.26 t(68) = -2.38, p \ .001 7.63/3.37 t(68) = -5.16, p \ .001

Disgust 4.00/3.20 t(68) = -1.85, p \ .03 6.83/4.51 t(68) = -2.62, p \ .01

Anger 3.31/3.63 t(68) = .83, p = .41(ns) 8.63/3.77 t(68) = -5.46, p \ .001

Surprise 3.74/2.71 t(68) = -2.68, p \ .05 4.94/3.46 t(68) = -2.29, p \ .03

Cogn Process

123

experimental block consisted of 60 trials, for a total of 480

experimental trials, whereas the practice block had 48 tri-

als. Feedback was provided only in the practice trials. The

experiment lasted about 55–60 min (see Fig. 3).

The experimental design included three within-subjects

factors: probe type (emotional tag vs. proper noun), emo-

tional meaning of the sentence (joy vs. sadness), and probe

position (up vs. down).

Results and discussion

Participants responded correctly in 96.2 % of all trials

(18,009 of 18,720). For the response time (RT) analyses,

only correct responses were taken into account. The med-

ian RT was estimated for each participant in each condi-

tion, and these averages were submitted to a parametric

ANOVA. The median was chosen since it is an estimator of

central tendency robust to outliers (Whelan 2008). A

2 9 2 9 2 repeated measures ANOVA of the median RTs

revealed main effects of all three factors: responses were

faster with proper nouns (773 ms) compared to emotional

tags (836 ms; F (1, 38) = 16.94, MSE = 18,510.24,

p \ .001, gp2 = .31), after joy sentences (778 ms) with

respect to sad ones (832 ms; F (1, 38) = 78.50,

MSE = 2,859.86, p \ .001, gp2 = .67), and with probes

displayed in the upper position (800 ms) compared to

lower location (810 ms; F (1, 38) = 5.76,

MSE = 1,177.26, p = .021, gp2 = .13). There was also a

significant interaction between probe type and the emo-

tional meaning of the sentence (F (1, 38) = 36.49,

MSE = 1,467.97, p \ .001, gp2 = .49) showing that the

speeding-up effect of the joy sentences was even higher

with the emotional tags (D79 ms) as probes compared to

proper nouns (D27 ms). Figure 4 displays the means of

those average reaction times as produced by the parametric

ANOVA.

All these results show the sensitivity of our SECV task

and support its usefulness to reflect emotional processes,

but crucially, the critical effect for the purposes of the

present work is the significant interaction between the three

factors (F (1,38) = 10.03, MSE = 648.08, p \ .01,

gp2 = .21). To analyse this interaction, further 2 9 2

ANOVAs with the factors emotional meaning of the sen-

tence and probe position were performed separately for

each probe type condition (emotional tag and proper noun).

With the emotional probes, the ANOVA found an inter-

action between both factors (F (1, 38) = 6.36,

MSE = 1,050.11, p \ .02, gp2 = .14) revealing a faster RT

to the upper position after a joy sentence (785 ms) com-

pared to the lower one (808 ms) and an absence of this

effect when sad sentences were presented (upper position:

875 ms; lower position: 878 ms). In contrast, the same

interaction was not significant in the ANOVA of the

responses to the proper nouns (F (1, 38) = 1.92,

MSE = 544.84, p = .174, gp2 = .05). This pattern of

results supports an association between affect and vertical

position but which is only reliable with emotional probes.

Interestingly, the main factor probe position was not sig-

nificant in the 2 9 2 ANOVAs, ruling out a global bias to a

specific location suggested by the significant effect of

probe position in the global ANOVA. Contrary to this

interpretation, this main effect seems to be a by-product of

the interaction of joyful sentences with the upper position

and the absence of any relationship between sad sentences

and the lower location, resulting in a smaller (D10 ms) but

consistent effect.

Identical analyses were conducted on accuracy rates.

The 2 9 2 9 2 ANOVA of the hit rates showed the main

effects of the factors probe type (emotional tags: 94.9 %;

proper nouns: 97.4 %; F (1, 38) = 31.47, MSE = .002,

p \ .001, gp2 = .45) and the emotional meaning of the

sentence (joy sentences; 97.1 %; sad sentences: 95.3 %;

F (1, 38) = 19.95, MSE = .001, p \ .001, gp2 = .34), as

Table 3 Frequency of verbal emotional contexts generated by the

Spanish sample for the emotions joy and sadness

Emotion Rank Verbal emotional contexts Frequency

Joy 1 Enjoy time with loved ones 51

2 Work to achieve one’s aims 37

3 Pass an exam or a course 36

4 Receive and give affection from and

to others

27

5 Be reunited with loved ones 25

6 A positive environment with family

and friends

15

7 Sporting victories of your teams 11

8 Enjoy free-time activities 11

9 Solve problems for others 11

10 Receive a present or a surprise 10

11 Form a family, births 9

Sadness 1 Death of a loved one 40

2 Separation from loved ones 27

3 Suffer injustice 23

4 Failure or disappointment 21

5 Suffer an accident or illness of

somebody close

19

6 Be aware of poverty in the world 19

7 Problems or break-up with one’s

partner

14

8 Arguments with people who are close 13

9 Isolation or social rejection 12

10 Fail an exam or a course 11

Cogn Process

123

well as the significant interaction between them (emotional

tags: -3.3 %; proper nouns: -.2 %; F (1, 38) = 12.16,

MSE = .002, p \ .01, gp2 = .24), all of them in the same

direction as the effects found with RTs. No other main

effect or interactions were significant. There was no indi-

cation of a speed–accuracy trade-off.

Assuming an association between affect and vertical

position, an interaction between emotional meaning of the

sentence and the probe position could be expected either in

the context of a first-order or second-order interaction. We

have observed a second-order interaction involving the

three experimental factors that revealed different patterns

of results as a function of the probe type. Crucially, when

emotional tags were used as probes, a significant interac-

tion of the emotional meaning of the sentence with the

probe position pointed to a metaphorical conceptual–spa-

tial effect, so that the presentation of joyful sentences

primed a faster response to the probes in the upper position.

In contrast, the same interaction was not reliable in the case

of proper nouns acting as probes. Thus, our results could be

interpreted as supporting a link between emotional acti-

vation and the vertical axis but only when the task demands

an explicit emotional evaluation of the target. In contrast, if

the task does not require an emotional judgment, the

affective activation generated by the sentence has no effect

over the vertical space. This finding is related to the pre-

vious studies by Niedenthal et al. (2009) and de la Vega

et al. (2012), which observed the embodiment of specific

emotions but only in emotion-focused processing tasks. In

contrast, these results apparently oppose the previous

finding of Meier and Robinson (2004; Study 2) showing

that affective states can bias spatial attention to stimuli

without an emotional meaning (i.e. letters ‘‘q’’ or ‘‘p’’). A

further discussion of this issue will follow in the next

section.

Yet, an alternative interpretation of the results could be

proposed. The intrinsic emotional valence of the tag

‘‘JOY’’ might be exclusively responsible for the faster

response in the upper position observed with emotional

probes, as previous results have shown (Meier and

Table 4 Sentences used in Experiment 2

Emotion Rank in the RVEC list Verbal emotional contexts

Joy 1 Juan disfruto mucho con sus amigos (John had a good time with his friends)

2 Juan consiguio estudiar lo que querıa (John succeeded in studying what he wanted)

3 Juan aprobo todas las asignaturas (John passed all the subjects)

4a Juan escucho alabanzas por su trabajo (John received much praise for his work.)

4 Juan recibio un gran abrazo de su padre (John received a big hug from his dad)

5 Juan se reencontro por fin con su hermano (John reunited with his brother)

6 Juan gozo de ver feliz a su familia (John relished seeing his family)

7 Juan saboreo la victoria de su equipo (John savoured his team’s victory)

8 Juan se lo paso muy bien en su viaje (John had a good time during his trip)

11 Juan quedo encantado con el nuevo bebe (John marvelled at the newborn baby)

Sadness 1 Juan lloro la muerte de su madre (John cried over his dad’s death)

2 Juan perdio a su mejor amigo (John lost his best friend)

3 Juan sufrio una condena injusta (John suffered from being unjustly condemned)

4b Juan fracaso en su ansiado proyecto (John failed in his desired project)

4 Juan fue enganado por su companero (John was betrayed by his partner)

5 Juan padecio una grave enfermedad (John endured a serious sickness)

6 Juan se apeno del hambre infantil en Africa (John was saddened by childhood starvation in Africa)

7 Juan fue abandonado por su pareja (John was dumped by his partner)

9 Juan se sintio muy solo en la fiesta (John felt quite lonely at the party)

10 Juan suspendio el difıcil examen (John quit the difficult exam)

Male (M) and female (F) names randomly used in the sentences: M = Juan, Luis, Jorge, Pablo, German, Enrique, Manuel, Javier, Alberto, and

Carlos. F = Alicia, Paloma, Marıa, Sara, Isabel, Monica, Sandra, Montse, Marta, and Lauraa In Experiment 2, for JOY sentences, there were two different sentences from the fourth RVEC and one sentence from the eleventh RVEC.

Sentences from the nine and tenth RVEC were not used in order to optimise the different sentences from JOY emotion. The ninth RVEC

‘‘Resolver problemas a los demas’’ (‘‘solve others’ problems’’) was difficult to adjust and the 10th RVEC ‘‘Recibir un regalo o sorpresa’’

(‘‘receive a present’’) overlapped with SURPRISE emotionb In Experiment 2, for SADNESS sentences, there were two different sentences from the fourth RVEC and no sentence from the eighth RVEC

‘‘Discusiones con personas cercanas’’ (‘‘arguments with close friends’’) was used because it overlapped with ANGER emotion

Cogn Process

123

Robinson 2004, 2006; Santiago et al. 2012). This possible

explanation could account for the conceptual–spatial

interaction observed with emotional probes and, comple-

mentarily, for its absence in the non-emotional condition.

In order to test this alternative hypothesis, an additional

2 9 2 9 2 within-subjects ANOVA with the factors emo-

tional meaning of the sentence (joy vs. sadness), probe

position (up vs. down), and emotional tag (joy vs. sadness)

was conducted only for the RTs to the emotional probes.

Notice that the current factor emotional tag was a condition

of the factor probe type in previous analyses. For the

present testing, that condition has been divided into the two

different tags included in the experiment, i.e. ‘‘ALEGRIA’’

(joy) and ‘‘TRISTEZA’’ (sadness). The relevant analysis

for our objectives was the interaction between probe

position and emotional tags, which did not reach

significance (F \ 1), suggesting that the priming effect of

the joyful sentences facilitates the response with both joy

and sad probes. However, since the second-order interac-

tion with the three factors was also significant (F (1,

38) = 4.72, MSE = 3,077.87, p = .036, gp2 = .11), the

alternative hypothesis could not yet be ruled out.

To analyse this interaction, and in line with previous

analyses, further 2 9 2 ANOVAs with the factors probe

position and emotional tag were performed separately for

each emotional condition of the sentence. In the case of joy

sentences, the crucial interaction between the two factors

was not significant (F \ 1.2), in support of a general effect

of the positive activation to upper positions independently

of the affective value of the probe. Another 2 9 2 ANOVA

with the sad sentences revealed a significant interaction

between probe position and emotional tag (F (1,38) =

5.27, MSE = 3,077.87, p = .027, gp2 = .14) that showed a

trend, not revealed by the previous analyses, to respond

faster to the joy probes in the upper position and the

opposite pattern in the lower location. However, none of

the pairwise comparisons carried out detected differences

between conditions (all p [ .10).

Another complementary way to rule out this alternative

hypothesis is by conducting an additional 2 9 2 9 2

within-subjects ANOVA with the factors emotional sen-

tence-word congruency (congruent vs. incongruent), emo-

tional meaning of the sentence (joy vs. sadness), and probe

position (up vs. down) on the RTs to the emotional probes.

For this analysis, we computed a new factor that combined

the factors emotional meaning of the sentence and emo-

tional tag (e.g. a joyful sentence before the probe ‘‘SAD-

NESS’’ became an incongruent trial). The most interesting

results were a main effect of congruency (F (1, 38) = 35.9,

MSE = 12,652.7, p \ .001, gp2 = .49; congruent: 804 ms,

incongruent: 880 ms) and a replication of the interaction

between emotional meaning of the sentence and probe

position (F (1, 38) = 5.60, MSE = 2,983.03, p = .023,

gp2 = .13) revealing a faster RT to the upper position after a

joy sentence (788 ms) compared to the lower position

(814 ms) and an absence of this effect when sad sentences

were presented (upper position: 884 ms; lower position:

881 ms). Critically, the second-order interaction between

the three factors did not reach significance (F \ 1) sug-

gesting that the emotional meaning of the sentences created

the space–valence association effect in congruent as well as

in incongruent trials.3

Taken together, these analyses supported the occurrence

of a reliable priming effect of the emotional valence of the

sentences on the processing of probes at the upper position

and not only restricted to the joy tag.

Fig. 3 Example of a sequence of events in Experiment 2

Fig. 4 Means of the median reaction times (ms) and standard error

bars for all conditions in Experiment 2 (error bars represent ± 1 SE)

3 We thank one of reviewers for suggesting this analysis.

Cogn Process

123

General discussion and conclusions

This work shows some specific conditions in which the

emotion induced by the representative verbal emotional

contexts (RVEC of joy and sadness) could modulate the

responses to the targets as a function of their position in a

vertical axis, by means of a metaphorical conceptual–spa-

tial association.

In Experiment 1, Spanish and Colombian participants

performed a representative verbal emotional contexts pro-

duction task (RVEC task) requiring participants to produce

RVEC for the emotions of joy, sadness, surprise, anger,

fear, and disgust. In both cultural contexts (Spain and

Colombia), there were common RVEC produced by at least

30 % of participants in each one of the six emotions, and

not only in joy, sadness, and surprise emotions, as found by

Elosua and Gonzalez (1989). Furthermore, Experiment 1

showed significant gender and cultural differences between

Spanish and Colombian participants regarding the average

number of representative verbal emotional contexts pro-

duced in the RVEC task.

Data from Experiment 1 also provided the RVEC that

were used in Experiment 2. All the sentences used in

Experiment 2 were empirically the most RVEC given by

Spanish participants in Experiment 1 to joy and sadness

emotions. The validity of this verbal material is important

because, in the development of an embodiment framework

in psychology, the need to study actions in relevant con-

texts is highlighted (see Meier et al. 2012).

However, this study has some limitations in the analyses

of cultural and gender differences in the production of

RVEC because the focus of this work was only on the

number of RVEC. Further studies should additionally

analyse qualitative differences between cultural contexts as

well as between females and males.

The results of Experiment 2 showed a mapping between

emotions and vertical space induced by sentences recreat-

ing representative emotional contexts. Previous studies

have made use of single words referring to emotional

concepts obtaining similar results in the horizontal (e.g. de

la Vega et al. 2012) and the vertical plane (Meier and

Robinson 2004; Meier et al. 2011; Santiago et al. 2012),

even when the vertical axis was uncoupled from the

response axis by monitoring saccade trajectory deviations

along the horizontal plane (Gozli et al. 2013). Thus, the

current work with a new task provides some empirical data

for testing the cognitive embodiment hypothesis by means

of linguistic units larger than words. The results suggest

that our SECV task can induce effective activation of

emotional states supporting its usefulness as a new exper-

imental tool to investigate the interactions between cog-

nitive and affective processes. It should be noted that our

task could be especially useful to determine the conditions

under which an interaction between emotional valence and

physical space would occur. As shown in Experiment 2,

our task allows disentangling of the effect of a mere acti-

vation of an emotion and the effective application of this

information in an emotion-focused task. All the trials

required activation of a concrete emotional state, whereas

only some of them demanded an explicit judgment based

on their valence. According to our results, the metaphorical

association of emotion with vertical space does not auto-

matically make a behavioural effect when an emotional

state is activated; an explicit use of this information for a

response is required to obtain a reliable interaction. This

finding is related to the previous studies by Niedenthal

et al. (2009) and de la Vega et al. (2012), which observed

the embodiment of specific emotions but only in the con-

text of emotion-focused processing tasks. However, our

study goes beyond these works in emphasizing the critical

role of the required response in the emergence of concep-

tual–physical interactions, at least in the case of the vertical

space. Apparently, our results are incongruent with those of

Meier and Robinson (2004; Experiment 2), which sug-

gested that emotional activation interacts with the spatial

position in the vertical axis of stimuli lacking emotional

content. However, a careful inspection of the experimental

procedure of their Experiment 2 revealed that a valence

judgment task of emotional words (e.g. ‘‘hero’’, ‘‘liar’’) was

required prior to the response to the non-emotional stimuli

(i.e. letters ‘‘q’’ or ‘‘p’’). In line with our results, it could be

proposed that the explicit response to the emotional words

in Meier and Robinson’s procedure generated a residual

effect extended to the subsequent targets, which, interest-

ingly, was immediately displayed. A relevant test of this

hypothesis should include a new condition demanding a

non-emotional response to the words (e.g. reading the word

or counting their vowels), in order to check the role of an

explicit emotional response.

Data from Experiment 2 are also relevant to the trajec-

tory of embodiment framework in psychology because,

according to Meier et al. (2012, p. 9), ‘‘[it] is heading

toward a deeper level of understanding and is beginning to

focus on mediators, action-relevant outcome measures in a

broadly defined manner’’. In this sense, we propose that the

new SECV task provides specific results about mediators

needed to activate representative emotional verbal contexts

that interact with the vertical spatial axis. Following

Meteyard et al. (2012), the results from our Experiment 2

would be difficult to explain by ‘‘unembodied theories’’

(complete independence in the relationship to sensory-

motor systems) and ‘‘strong embodiment’’ (complete

dependence in the relationship to sensory-motor systems).

It seems that ‘‘secondary embodiment’’ (independent but

associated in the relationship to sensory-motor systems)

and ‘‘weak embodiment’’ (partial dependence in the

Cogn Process

123

relationship to sensory-motor systems) should be better

candidates to explain them. However, the current work was

not explicitly designed to test the predictions from those

different models of embodiment, and any discussion on this

issue must be considered as merely tentative. For the

future, research should carefully define the boundaries of

interaction between emotional processing and the vertical

spatial axis in order to grasp the factors responsible for

establishing some limits to the interaction. In this sense, the

nature of the task used to activate the emotional processing

and to establish what level of processing an experimental

task requires are important factors; different tasks may

imply different configurations of semantic information as

necessary and sufficient to interact with the vertical spatial

axis. The novel spatial–emotional congruency verification

task (SECV task) has been useful to find some limits to the

interaction. Overall, the results indicate that a mapping

between emotions and vertical space can occur for lin-

guistic units larger than words, but only when the task

demands an explicit affective evaluation of the target.

There is evidence suggesting that an association

between emotions and spatial vertical locations might have

a social component. Indeed, some authors (e.g. Lakoff and

Johnson 1980) argue that this association has its origin in

body postures associated with positive/negative affects. For

example, research has shown that positive and negative

evaluations can be given to northern and southern loca-

tions, respectively (see Meier et al. 2011), and that power-

related concepts (e.g. king or servant) can be mapped onto

upper and lower vertical locations (Zanolie et al. 2012).

These results speak directly to the way emotions are

intrinsic to social cognition and, indirectly, hint at the idea

that there is also an action component. Direct evidence as

to how emotions and actions underlie social cognition has

already been discussed elsewhere (Gallese et al. 2004). The

take-home message is that a comprehensive explanation of

how social cognition occurs needs to consider emotions

and actions in tandem.

As most of the research aimed at investigating associa-

tions between emotions and vertical space, including the

experiment reported herein, has relied mostly on visual

tasks, other senses need to be researched in relation to

emotions and their metaphorical mapping onto space. That

is, there needs to be further study of whether haptic, audi-

tory, and gustatory evaluations of positive and negative

stimuli, even cross-modal combinations among them, can

also be mapped onto vertical locations such that the map-

pings have straightforward social cognition relevance. For

instance, although there is research showing that haptic

exploration of symmetric shapes is more accurate when the

shapes are vertically oriented than when they are horizon-

tally oriented (see Ballesteros et al. 1998), it is still unclear

what the social cognition value of this phenomenon is. In

other words, there is no research devised to answer the

question of what social scenarios such haptic accuracy is

meaningful to and what its emotional value is. Likewise,

there is research demonstrating that round shapes, names,

and typographies paired with low-pitch sounds have

stronger association with sweet tastes than sour tastes

(Velasco et al. 2014), but it has not been researched as to

whether those associations have emotional value or whether

they have metaphorical mappings onto spatial locations. In

the specific case of emotion perception and assessment,

there is recent evidence indicating that happy and negative

emotions have higher intensity in auditory-visual modalities

than in these modalities alone (Bhullar 2013). Addressing

these issues has direct implications for various areas in

applied social psychology. For instance, the results can

assist neuro-marketing research in determining whether

presenting certain flavoured items in specific spatial loca-

tions (e.g. in TV advertisements) and over multiple sensory

modalities (e.g. vision and audition) can encourage their

purchase and gain advantage over competing products.

The results presented herein provide evidence as to

those social situations which are associated with specific

emotions and under what linguistic tasks an automatic

association between emotions and space emerges. Further

research should focus on unveiling the associated actions

and perceptions supporting the social situations that sub-

stantiate emotions. With this information, it would be

possible to design tasks that provide evidence as to the

relevance of those actions in the understanding of emotions

and, if so, whether such association is automatic or not.

Such results will assist in disentangling current debate as to

whether social cognition is inescapably embodied (see

Goldman and de Vignemont 2009). More importantly,

future tasks should strive to investigate how different

sensorimotor modalities interact during the mapping of

emotions onto space in socially relevant scenarios.

Acknowledgments The authors thank Juan Botella (Autonoma

University, Madrid) and Antonio Rodan (CEU University, Madrid)

for providing facilities to take data for Experiment 1, Carlos Elias

Cifuentes Villalobos (Los Libertadores University) for assisting with

part of the analyses for Experiment 1, and Dr. Robyn Groves for

assisting with proofreading this manuscript.

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