Pleasant emotional induction broadens the visual world of young children |
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Authors: | Nicolas Poirel Mathieu Cassotti Virginie Beaucousin Arlette Pineau Olivier Houdé |
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Institution: | 1. UMR6232 (CI-NAPS), CNRS, CEA , Université de Caen, Université Paris Descartes , Paris , France nicolas.poirel@parisdescartes.fr;3. UMR6232 (CI-NAPS), CNRS, CEA , Université de Caen, Université Paris Descartes , Paris , France;4. Centre de Gestion Scientifique , Mines ParisTech , Paris , France;5. Laboratoire de Psychopathologie et Neuropsychologie (EA2027) , Université Paris 8 , Saint-Denis , France;6. UMR6232 (CI-NAPS), CNRS, CEA , Université de Caen, Université Paris Descartes , Paris , France;7. Institut Universitaire de France , Paris , France |
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Abstract: | These experiments aimed at studying the influence of emotional context on global/local visual processing in children. Children 5 years old, known to present an immature global visual bias, and 8 years old, known to pay attention predominantly to global information, were placed in either a neutral or pleasant emotional context and subsequently presented with a global/local visual judgement task. As with previous findings for adults, both age groups presented a pronounced perceptual bias toward global information following exposure to emotionally pleasant pictures. Interestingly, younger children, who do not present a global bias during the neutral exposure, presented the same preference for global information as older children when exposed to the pleasant context. These findings indicate that emotion may strongly affect visual perception in children, with important implications for educational practice and models of cognition. |
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Keywords: | Cognitive development Global processing Local processing Emotion |
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