The Impact Of Positive Affect On Perception With Global And Local Features

The impact of positive affect on cognitive research is a hot topic in the research about emotion. The influence of positive affect on the global and local perceptual processing has drawn greater attention in recent years. This study, based on the broaden-and-build theory (Fredrickson), uses the global/ local processing of hierarchical stimulus paradigm pioneered by Navon. The participants are university students. The author employs questionnaire, conducts action experiments and neurophysiologic (ERPs) experiments to explore the influence of positive affect on the global and local perceptual processing. This study is composed of three experimentsExperiment 1 Inspection of the effect of film-induced emotion state on global and local perceptual processing. There are 60 subjects, ranging 19-22 in age. The experiment uses between-subjects and within-subjects mixed design and emotional-inducing film. The task given in the experiment is to make judgment of the letters and Chinese characters to determine the three cognitive conditions (both global and local, global, and local).Experiment 2 Study of the impact of the three different affect (positive, neutral, negative) on the global and local perceptual processing to explore whether positive affect can promote perception of local features. There are 87 samples, ranging from 19 to 25 in age. With between-subjects and within-subjects mixed design, the experiment uses the mood scale (PANAS) by Waston et al (1988) to select participants with different mood. The task of the experiment is to make judgment of the letters and Chinese characters to determine the three cognitive conditions (both global and local, global and local).Experiment 3 Study of emotional priming with the global and local features of perceptual processing of brain electrical activity. Twenty-two participants are evenly divided between men and women, ranging in age from 19 to 23. The experiment uses within-subjects design and ERP technology. The selected pictures for the emotional experience are used to make judgment of English letters.Research findings1.In every cognitive conditions, participants with positive affect respond shorter than with negative affect; and whether it is under positive or negative emotional conditions, participants under the global cognitive conditions require the shortest reaction time and the participants under both global and local cognitive conditions requires the longest reaction time.2. With positive affect, there are individual cognitive differences in material response. The average individual reaction time to the Chinese characters is shorter than the average reaction time to English letters. When the cognitive material is Chinese characters, under positive affect conditions, the average reaction time of the individuals on the global condition is significantly shorter than the both global and local conditions; With negative affect, the average reaction time of the individual under the global condition is significantly shorter than the both global and local and the local conditions. When the cognitive materials are letters, the main effects of the interaction of the individual conditions of emotional state and cognitive conditions and the emotional state are not significant. Only in different cognitive conditions, there is a significant difference in the reaction time. The reaction time of the individual under the global and local conditions is significantly longer than the reaction time under local conditions.3. With positive affect, the individual’s response to the cognitive materials has gender differences. The average reaction time of boys with positive and negative affect exists no difference. The average reaction time of girls with positive and negative affect is significantly different. The average reaction time of girls with negative affect is significantly longer than with positive affect.4. In the context of positive affect picture and negative affect picture, the global-featured processing-induced P1 amplitude is greater than the local-featured processing-induced P1 amplitude. Global and local processing leads to a clear N2 component.5. In the positive affect context, the global stimulation caused greater N1 amplitude. In the positive and negative affect picture context, the global process compared to local processing lead to greater P2 amplitude. Furthermore, whether it is under global or local processing conditions, the positive affect pictures lead to greater P2 amplitude. In addition, no matter it is under global or local processing conditions, positive affect pictures lead to greater P3 amplitude.In summary, this study is innovative in that it uses Chinese college students as participants, film as inducing-materials, letters and Chinese characters as task materials and it applies EPR experimental technology. This research reaches consensus with some international research: positive affect promotes cognitive processing. Another research finding is that individuals with positive affect perceive Chinese characters faster. Research on ERP also provides some physiological basis for the advantages of the perception under positive affect.