A Behavioral Study of the Impact of Emotion Valence on Movement Speed

  Objective  To investigate how emotion valence affects the movement speed.

  Method  Emotion-induction and prompt-target task paradigms were combined in the study.Subjects were asked to view emotional pictures first, then continuously performed a movement task six times at the prompt of the target stimulus.

  Result  1) In Experiment 1, negative and positive conditions tend to increase the movement speed compared to neutral conditions, but did not reach the significant differences level; 2) In Experiment 2, the movement speed under negative conditions was significantly slower than that of neutral conditions.

  Conclusion  1) Compared with positive emotions, negative emotions have a greater impact on the movement speed; 2) Negative emotions will significantly slow down the movement speed, and the more negative emotions, the longer the duration of the impact on the movement speed.