Perceiving a negatively connoted stimulus imply enhanced performances: the case of a moving object

Most studies on verticality’s embodiment showed that up positions were related to positive emotions whereas down positions were related to negative ones (Meier & Robinson, 2004). Research on motion perception found that a parabolic motion both induced animation attribution (Tremoulet & Feldman, 2000) and implied negative feelings (Chafi, Schiaratura, & Rusinek, 2012; Podevin, 2009; Podevin, Chafi, Rusinek, & Békaert, 2012). We hypothesized that seeing a parabolic downward motion will increase both the memorization for words and the execution’s speed of a serial subtraction compared to a parabolic upward motion. Results showed that the downward motion had enhancing effects both on the serial subtraction and on the number of recalled words, independently of their valence. These findings are interpreted as marking processes related to an adaptive behavior in response to a negative stimulus.