Affect biases memory of location: Evidence for the spatial representation of affect

Abstract

Orientational metaphors that associate good with up and bad with down illustrate that spatial terms can be used to describe positivity and negativity. The present work examined how the association between valence and verticality influences memory for the locations of emotionally evocative stimuli. In two spatial memory experiments, participants viewed positive and negative images from the International Affective Picture System in various locations and then reproduced each image's location from memory. Results indicated that memories of location are influenced by stimulus valence, such that positive items are biased upward relative to negative items. A third experiment extended these results to yearbook photos that had been paired with positive or negative behavioural descriptions. The findings suggest that affective responses evoke spatial representations, leading to systematic biases in spatial memory.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant from the University of Richmond Arts and Sciences Faculty Research Committee. We thank Josh Carlton for help with data collection in Experiment 1, William S. Horton and Jessica Choplin for helpful comments on an earlier draft, and students in the University of Richmond Introduction to Psychology class for their participation.

Notes

¹The reason for these two different spatial organisations is beyond the scope of this paper. Subdividing the space may not be a rational strategy under the blocked testing conditions of Experiment 1 because of the high likelihood of misremembering which category a stimulus appeared in. Such categorisation errors have severe deleterious effects on memory accuracy (Huttenlocher et al., 2004). These categorisation errors are unlikely when recall is immediate (Experiment 2), thus making subcategorisation a more adaptive strategy.

²We thank Terry Regier for suggesting this approach.

³Some of these descriptions inadvertently included spatial language or reference to high or low spatial locations, such as ‘‘sky’’ or ‘‘floor’’ (see Positive item No. 1, Negative items, Nos 2, 7, and 14). The results were comparable when these items were eliminated from the analysis.