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

1. 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 Bertamini giulia@liverpool.ac.uk Introduction Experiment 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. 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? The order of the task was balanced between participants Experiment 1 N= 24 Experiment 2 N= 24 One task [288 trials] Participants attended to both regularity and word valence simultaneously Methods Electrodes selected for the analysis: Experiment 1 Experiment 2 Task 1: “Discriminate Regularity” Task 2: “Discriminate Word” Strong difference between Reflection and Random, P <.001 Weaker difference P =.05 P1 (100-130 ms) P <.001 SPN* (250-1000 ms) Reflection – Random N1 (170-200 ms) SPN (250-1000 ms) Amplitude +/- 1.5μv Results No congruency effect “Congruency Effect” For reflection patterns, p=.005 No effect with Random patterns! :-( No effects! p = .07 Reflection Positive – Reflection Negative Random Positive– Random Negative Reflection Positive – Reflection Negative Random Positive – Random Negative Discussion • We observed an association between symmetry and positive valence starting from 250ms from onset. • The “congruency effect” was evident only whenwords were attended and task-irrelevant patterns remained in the background. Conclusion 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. Would you like a pdf copy of the paper?? References 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.