Affect-congruent approach and withdrawal movements of happy and angry faces facilitate affective categorisation

Abstract

Increasing evidence indicates that evaluation of affective stimuli facilitates the execution of affect-congruent approach and avoidance responses, and vice versa. These effects are proposed to be mediated by increases or decreases in the relative distance to the stimulus, due to the participant's action. In a series of experiments we investigated whether stimulus categorisation is similarly influenced when changes in this relative distance are due to movement of the stimulus instead of movements by the participant. Participants responded to happy and angry faces that appeared to approach (move towards) or withdraw (move away) from them. In line with previous findings, affective categorisation was facilitated when the movement was congruent with stimulus valence, resulting in faster and more correct responses to approaching happy and withdrawing angry faces. These findings suggest that relative distance indeed plays a crucial role in approach–avoidance congruency effects, and that these effects do not depend on the execution of movements by the participant.

Keywords:

• Approach–avoidance
• Facial expression
• Emotion evaluation
• Stimulus movement
• Compatibility

Acknowledgements

The work of KR was supported by a grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO).

The authors thank Lieke Wiggers, Frans Clements, Hans Sandberg, Reineke Bos, Jitske Tiemensma, Josje Mulder, Inge van der Neut, Dagmar Feenstra, Josanne Huijg, Ioulia Maimari, and Steven van der Werff for their assistance in data collection. Furthermore, we thank Andreas Eder and the anonymous reviewer for their valuable comments on this paper.

Notes

¹Preliminary research indicated that the frowning eyebrows of the original friendly face of Öhman et al. (2001) resulted in some emotional ambivalence, giving the face a sad appearance. Therefore, the friendly face was modified by replacing the frowning (/ \) eyebrows with straight eyebrows (– –). The new friendly face was perceived as having a more happy expression. The remaining facial features of the angry and happy faces were physically comparable. The size of the eyebrows was selected such that both faces contained an equal amount of pixels.

²Cut-off scores for these groups were based on the lower third and the upper third of the distribution of BIS scores (range 9–28, M=18.5, SD=3.6) in a sample of 153 male students.