7/1/2023 0 Comments Types of negative moodsThese studies show that perception of a given hill varies with the perceiver’s capacity to scale that hill. 1 While this normative overestimation of hill slant hints at a relationship between our ability to scale a hill and our perception of its slant, several studies conducted by Proffitt and colleagues offer more direct evidence of this relationship ( Bhalla & Proffitt, 1999 Proffitt, Bhalla, Gossweiler & Midgett, 1995 Stefanucci, Proffitt, Banton & Epstein, 2005). Thus, people are able to distinguish a 4 degree hill from a 5 degree hill (two navigable hills that require different amounts of energy) by emphasizing the difference between them. Proffitt (2006) has argued that overestimation is useful because it allows increased sensitivity of judgment within the range of hills that potentially afford climbing. A 7 degree hill is reported to be between 25 and 30 degrees on average. First, people systematically overestimate hill slant ( Proffitt, Bhalla, Gossweiler, & Midgett, 1995). Whereas fatigue from a long run may influence perceptions of slant because of depleted energy, the experience of negative mood might do so by serving as information that one’s situation is not advantageous.Ī bit of background is necessary before describing our current study. The current research asked whether such affective information could influence perceptions of the effort required to ascend a hill without any actual change in energetic capacity. Indeed mood can exercise its influence by appearing to be embodied information about one’s prospects ( Clore & Huntsinger, 2007). Therefore, finding that moods influence perceptions of slant could not be explained by changes in energetic states as previous findings have been. Although moods may influence judgments of task difficulty ( Gendolla, Abele & Krusken, 2001), they do not have direct influences on energetic states ( Silvestrini & Gendolla, 2009). While previous factors of burden, fatigue, old age, and declining health have a direct effect on capacity to ascend a hill ( Bhalla & Proffitt, 1999), changes in affective state do not have the same sort of direct effect. We hypothesize that mood also influences hill slant perception. Previous research has shown that an observer’s capacity to walk up a hill affects their perception of that hill’s slant ( Proffitt, 2006). People in positive or negative moods may see the basic geometry of the world differently. This paper offers evidence for the role of one such internal property: mood. But do happy people see the world differently? Contemporary research on perception of surfaces in the world (such as the slant of a hill) often focuses on environmental properties as detected by mechanisms of the eyes and visual system, rather than internal, non-optical, properties of the observer ( Sedgwick, 2001). Recent research supports this belief, showing that one’s affective state can influence attention (Phelps, Ling & Carrasco, 2006), decision-making, and memory (Storbeck & Clore, 2005), thereby changing our experience of the world. Wittgenstein gives voice to a common belief not only does our mood affect our thoughts and feelings, but mood can affect the experienced world. Ludwig Wittgenstein Wittgenstein (1922), 6.43
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