Up, up and away: leaving the blues behind
Researchers from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands have found that simple motor actions, such as moving an object up or down, can play an important role in determining whether people recall happy or sad memories. The results of study were published in the journal Cognition. The researchers carried out the tests to clarify whether motor actions can influence people's positive and negative memories, and what they choose to remember. They asked volunteers to move marbles up or down between two cardboard boxes. Moving the marbles to the upper boxes caused people to remember happier and more positive life experiences and moving them to the lower boxes made them remember less happy times and events. To test the links between how we perceive space and emotion, the research team asked the volunteers to relate autobiographical memories while they were manipulating the marbles. 'Tell me about a time when you felt proud of yourself' or 'tell me about a time when you felt ashamed of yourself' are just a couple of examples. The study's participants related their positive memories faster during upward movements of the marbles and slower during downwards movement. The researchers carried out a second series of tests to ascertain if the up and down motor actions could also influence the content of memories. The volunteers were asked various questions including 'Tell me about something that happened during high school.' This gave subjects the chance to choose something happy or sad. Once again their memories seemed to be affected by the upward or downward direction of the marbles. Moving them up stimulated memories such as winning an award; downward movement was associated with something negative such as failing a test. The tests showed that seemingly meaningless motor actions can make us remember either happy or sad times, and that we associate happiness or sadness with spatial metaphors. Common expressions for a positive state of mind include being on top of the world or being on cloud nine, and for a negative state being low or down in the dumps. These language metaphors offer clues as to how we connect spatial words and emotional states. 'These data suggest that spatial metaphors for emotion aren't just in language,' said research team leader Daniel Casasanto from Radboud University Nijmegen. 'Linguistic metaphors correspond to mental metaphors, and activating the mental metaphor 'good is up' can cause us to think happier thoughts.' If happy thoughts can be triggered so easily, there could be intriguing positive and practical implications in the field of mental health. As Dr Casasanto said: 'Who knows, it would be great if this basic research can help people think more positively in the world beyond the laboratory.'
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Netherlands