ArticleScientific reports2021
Contour features predict valence and threat judgements in scenes.
Article in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- Less is more: Aesthetic liking is inversely related to metabolic expense by the visual system.PNAS nexus · 2025Article
- Empirical aesthetics of bridges.PloS one · 2025Article
- Direct perception of affective valence from vision.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Neural dissociation between computational and perceived measures of curvature.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Beauty and the sharp fangs of the beast: degree of angularity predicts perceived preference and threat.Psychological research · 2023Article
- Anger is red, sadness is blue: Emotion depictions in abstract visual art by artists and non-artists.Journal of vision · 2023Article
- Effects of phase synchronization and frequency specificity in the encoding of conditioned fear-a web-based fear conditioning study.PloS one · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Quickly scanning an environment to determine relative threat is an essential part of survival. Scene gist extracted rapidly from the environment may help people detect threats. Here, we probed this link between emotional judgements and features of visual scenes. We first extracted curvature, length, and orientation statistics of all images in the International Affective Picture System image set and related them to emotional valence scores. Images containing angular contours were rated as negative, and images containing long contours as positive. We then composed new abstract line drawings with specific combinations of length, angularity, and orientation values and asked participants to rate them as positive or negative, and as safe or threatening. Smooth, long, horizontal contour scenes were rated as positive/safe, while short angular contour scenes were rated as negative/threatening. Our work shows that particular combinations of image features help people make judgements about potential threat in the environment.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.