The constructivist approach of emotion considers that emotional features are not intrinsic properties of objects but are rather constructed « right here, right now » during the sensorimotor interactions between an individual and his environment. Our objective in this work was to demonstrate the mutual effects of action and emotional evaluation, grounded on the hedonic character of motor fluency (i.e. the ease with which an action is executed). We manipulated motor fluency by the use of lateralized hand movements in a valence judgment task. Indeed, valence and laterality appear to be linked since our dominant side is associated to positive valence (Casasanto, 2009). We compared conditions based on the congruency and non-congruency between the valence of items and the affective connotation of response movements. Our results indicated bidirectional influences of actions and evaluation based on two separate processes. On one hand during valence judgment, a compatibility effect facilitated the execution of a movement that was consistent due to motor fluency. On the other hand an attribution effect allowed the fluency of a movement to induce variations in the evaluation of neutral and emotional words. Furthermore, our works demonstrated the impact of the response device (orientation of a valence judgment scale and localization of response keys) on emotional judgment, underlying the situated character of evaluation. Those results are discussed in the light of the constructivist conception of emotion, in accordance with an embodied and situated approach of cognition.
Bidirectional influences of action and emotional evaluation : effects of motor fluency