432
Views
8
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
BRIEF REPORTS

Pleasant emotional induction broadens the visual world of young children

, , , &
Pages 186-191 | Received 16 Nov 2010, Accepted 10 May 2011, Published online: 09 Aug 2011
 

Abstract

These experiments aimed at studying the influence of emotional context on global/local visual processing in children. Children 5 years old, known to present an immature global visual bias, and 8 years old, known to pay attention predominantly to global information, were placed in either a neutral or pleasant emotional context and subsequently presented with a global/local visual judgement task. As with previous findings for adults, both age groups presented a pronounced perceptual bias toward global information following exposure to emotionally pleasant pictures. Interestingly, younger children, who do not present a global bias during the neutral exposure, presented the same preference for global information as older children when exposed to the pleasant context. These findings indicate that emotion may strongly affect visual perception in children, with important implications for educational practice and models of cognition.

Notes

1The IAPS slide numbers used in the present study were as follows: neutral: 2190, 2280, 2320, 5020, 5950, 7010, 7030, 7080, 7090, 7100, 7130, 7150, 7170, 7510, 8260; pleasant: 1710, 1750, 1920, 2070, 5030, 5480, 5910, 7250, 7325, 7330, 7390, 7410, 7430, 8496, 8620.

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.