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. 2011 May;2(3):311-316.
doi: 10.1177/1948550610390051. Epub 2010 Nov 4.

Anger as Seeing Red: Perceptual Sources of Evidence

Adam K Fetterman  1 , Michael D Robinson, Robert D Gordon, Andrew J Elliot
Affiliations

Anger as Seeing Red: Perceptual Sources of Evidence

Adam K Fetterman et al. Soc Psychol Personal Sci. 2011 May.

Abstract

A class of metaphors links the experience of anger to perceptions of redness. Whether such metaphors have significant implications for understanding perception is not known. In Experiment 1, anger (versus sadness) concepts were primed and it was found that priming anger concepts led individuals to be more likely to perceive the color red. In Experiment 2, anger states were directly manipulated, and it was found that evoking anger led individuals to be more likely to perceive red. Both experiments showed that the observed effects were independent of the actual color presented. These findings extend the New Look, perceptual, metaphoric, and social cognitive literatures. Most importantly, the results suggest that emotion representation processes of a metaphoric type can be extended to the perceptual realm.

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