Imagery and Emotions

Abstract

Many contemporary emotion theorists have recognized the importance of the imagery as conscious cognitive component of emotional experience. The aim of this work was to analyze some formal characteristics and contents of the figural representation of six basic emotional categories: fear, sadness, anger, cheerfulness, surprise, happiness. Thirty subjects were asked to visualize images associated with emotions. They had also to: 1) evaluate images movement and vividness; 2) answer a questionnaire regarding: color vs. black and white, two- vs. three-dimensional, insertion in a context vs. non insertion in a context; 3) provide the verbal report of images produced. The results revealed the existence of formal regularities in the imaginative representation of emotional categories. Finally, various thematic contents characterize different emotions.

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