Nencki Affective Picture System: Cross-Cultural Study in Europe and Iran.
Although emotions have been assumed conventionally to be universal, recent studies have suggested that various aspects of emotions may be mediated by cultural background. The purpose of our research was to test these contradictory views, in the case of the subjective evaluation of visual affective stimuli. We also sought to validate the recently introduced Nencki Affective Picture System (NAPS) database on a different cultural group. Since there has been, to date, no attempt to compare the emotions of a culturally distinct sample of Iranians with those of Europeans, subjective ratings were collected from 40 Iranians and 39 Europeans. Each cultural group was asked separately to provide normative affective ratings and classify pictures according to discrete emotions. The results were analyzed to identify cultural differences in the ratings of individual images. One hundred and seventy NAPS pictures were rated with regard to the intensity of the basic emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, surprise, anger, and disgust) they elicited, as well as in terms of affective dimensions (valence and arousal). Contrary to previous studies using the International Affective Picture System, our results for Europeans and Iranians show that neither the ratings for affective dimensions nor for basic emotions differed across cultural groups. In both cultural groups, the relationship between valence and arousal ratings could be best described by a classical boomerang-shaped function. However, the content of the pictures (animals, faces, landscapes, objects, or people) had a significant effect on the ratings for valence and arousal. These findings indicate that further studies in cross-cultural affective research should control for the content of stimuli.
Laboratory of Brain Imaging, Neurobiology Centre, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Polish Academy of Sciences Warsaw, Poland.
Monika
M
Riegel
Laboratory of Brain Imaging, Neurobiology Centre, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Polish Academy of SciencesWarsaw, Poland; Faculty of Psychology, University of WarsawWarsaw, Poland.
Abnoos
A
Moslehi
Faculty of Psychology, University of WarsawWarsaw, Poland; Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences and Design in Poznan, SWPS University of Social Sciences and HumanitiesPoznan, Poland.
Jarosław M
JM
Michałowski
Laboratory of Psychophysiology, Department of Neurophysiology, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Polish Academy of Sciences Warsaw, Poland.
Łukasz
Ł
Żurawski
Department of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Applied Sciences Zagreb, Croatia.
Marko
M
Horvat
Laboratory of Brain Imaging, Neurobiology Centre, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Polish Academy of Sciences Warsaw, Poland.
Marek
M
Wypych
Laboratory of Psychophysiology, Department of Neurophysiology, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Polish Academy of Sciences Warsaw, Poland.
Katarzyna
K
Jednoróg
Laboratory of Brain Imaging, Neurobiology Centre, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Polish Academy of Sciences Warsaw, Poland.
Artur
A
Marchewka
Nencki Affective Picture System (NAPS); affective visual stimuli; arousal; basic emotions; cross-cultural comparison; valence