Abstract:

The Motivational Dimensional Model (MDM, Gable & Harmon-Jones, 2010c), based on a series of experiments on attention, memory, and cognitive categorisation, proposes that the positive affect high in approach motivation narrows the scope of cognition, whereas the positive affect low in approach motivation broadens the scope of cognition (Gable & Harmon-Jones, 2010b, 2011a; Price & Harmon-Jones, 2010). The current study examined the influence of positive affects differed in approach motivational intensity on the effect of global precedence on mental rotation of compound stimuli on the basis of MDM hypothesis. We carried out two experiments using behavioral and cognitive emotion-eliciting methods to examine the influence of positive affects differed in the approach motivational intensities on the effect of global precedence on mental rotation of compound stimuli. In Experiment 1 we adopted 3 body postures (leaning forward, sitting upright and reclining backward) accompanied by the facial expression of smile to elicit positive affects with high, moderate and low approach motivation, respectively. In Experiment 2 we adopted Monetary Incentive Delay Paradigm, which added neutral condition lacked in experiment 1. Twenty eight and thirty one university students completed the parity judgment task that requires mental rotation of compound stimuli in each experiment. The first object was to examine the influence of positive affects differed in approach motivation on mental rotation. The second object was to examine the different effect between the positive affect in different approach motivation and the neutral condition on mental rotation. The results were: (1) In Experiment 1 Individuals responded faster to global targets than local targets when sitting upright and reclining forward, while their performance remained in the same level given local and global targets when leaning forward; (2) In Experiment 2 the results showed that the main effect of the reward (gain/no gain) on the RTs of mental rotation task was not significant, but individuals responded faster to global targets than local targets in the postgoal expected and postgoal unexpected condition while did not differ in their RTs to local and global targets after the pretgoal cue. We concluded that the approch motivation moderated the influence of positive affect on the effect of global precedence on mental rotation. The effect of global precedence on mental rotation showed up when the approach motivation was low but disappeared when the approach motivation was high. These results suggest the positive affect low in approach motivation broadens the scope of mental rotation, whereas the positive affect high in approach motivation narrows the scope of mental rotation. But we did not found that the valence (positive affect / neutral condition) moderated the effect of global precedence on mental rotation.

Key words: approch motivation, positive affect, mental rotation, the Motivational Dimensional Model, Monetary Incentive Delay