Upward Action Promotes Selective Attention to Negative Words

Space-valence metaphors (e.g., bad is down) are embedded within cognitive and emotional processing (e.g., negative stimuli at a lower space capture visual attention more than those at an upper space). Previous studies have revealed that motor action to vertical direction affects the emotional valence rating of stimuli in a metaphor-congruent manner only when the action was introduced after the stimuli presentation. In the present study, we hypothesized that motor action before the stimuli presentation does not affect valence rating while it may affect visual selective attention. In Experiment 1 (participants: 28 university students; mean age = 19.50 years), we partially replicated the previous result with repeated ANOVA and t-tests; manual action introduced before the stimuli presentation does not affect the valence rating. Then, in Experiment 2 (participants: 28 university students; mean age = 19.57 years), we employed a modified version of the dot-probe task as a measure of visual selective attention to emotional stimuli, where participants’ vertical or horizontal manual action was introduced before the presentation of a pair of emotional words. The results of the t-tests revealed that an upward manual action promoting selective attention to negative words, which was incongruent with the space-valence metaphorical correspondence. These results suggest that even though manual action does not affect the evaluative process of emotional stimuli prospectively, upward manual action introduced before stimuli presentation can promote visual attention to the subsequent negative stimuli in a way that is incongruent with the space-valence metaphor.