Preferences in Recall of Pleasant

and Unpleasant Images

Mritunjay Kumar, Rajesh Ranjan, Braj Bhushan and Ahmed Sameer

Abstract The role of emotional state on memory has been well established. How
emotion provoking stimuli influence the cognitive processes is, however, not well
understood. Our broad objective was to see the impact of emotion provoking visual
stimulus on memory. Sixty images were generated using Indian version of the
Geneva Affective Picture Database (GAPED). Four categories of images (child,
adult, animal and landscape) were either pleasant or unpleasant in nature. These
images were shown to thirty participants following a repeated measure design.
Immediate free recall of the images was recorded to see the effect of type of image
on recall. Bayesian inference was used to analyze the data. Results show evidence
for effect of type of image on recall by 120:1 against the null. The model of image
category was also preferred to the null by 35:1.

Keywords Design aesthetics
Pleasant images
Unpleasant images
Recall

Visual design

M. Kumar (&)
Design Programme, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur, India
e-mail: mritunjk@iitk.ac.in
R. Ranjan
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, University of Melbourne,
Melbourne, Australia
e-mail: rajeshr@student.unimelb.edu.au
B. Bhushan
A. Sameer
Psychology Discipline, Department of HSS, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur,
Kanpur, India
e-mail: brajb@iitk.ac.in
A. Sameer
e-mail: Sameer.praiser@gmail.com

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017 695

A. Chakrabarti and D. Chakrabarti (eds.), Research into Design for Communities,
Volume 2, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 66,
DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-3521-0_59
696 M. Kumar et al.

1 Introduction

Retrieval of past information is referred to as recall. Stimuli can be recalled either

with a pointer to memory (cued recall) or without any cue (free recall). Emotion
component of the stimulus affects the ease of recall [1], although the relationship
between the nature of recall depends on the retrieval process involved (cued vs. free
recall). The role of emotion in cognitive processes, such as memory, has been well
documented in the area of behavioral sciences. Generally emotionally arousing
stimulus tends to be more salient than non-emotional stimulus regardless of its
valence (pleasantness or unpleasantness). This is probably the strongest explanation
of enhancing effect of emotion in cognition. Large number of studies have been
carried out to study this relationship and the results have mostly provided evidence
for the effect of emotion on memory. For example, emotional pictures tend to be
remembered more than non-emotional pictures [2]. Quite often this recall is more
accurate and vividly than non-emotional events [3].
Emotions play a vital role when we interact with an object in our daily lives.
Extension of our emotion is reflected the way we interact with the products and
surroundings of our physical world. This emotional interaction has implications in
various design disciplines like interior design, product design, architecture design,
home appliances design, etc. Thus, designing a product which elicits emotional
response is likely to impact the recall preference as compared to the neutral
products. Various brand logos and books can be designed for better remembrance
ultimately affecting the sale of the product.
Behavioral and neuroscience research have attributed better memory for emo-
tional events to the interactions between the amygdala and specific brain areas [4].
This effect seems to present across modalities like sound [5], smell [6], vision
(faces) [7], etc. In a classic study Jersild [8] found that memory (recall) of pleasant
experiences was better than that of unpleasant experiences. Similar evidence has
been obtained for other modalities. However, there has been lack of systematic
comparison of effect of pleasant and unpleasant visual stimulus on subsequent
recall. This study aimed at filling this gap. Our broad aim was to see the role of
emotion provoking common images on memory. As stated above, many researchers
have established that emotional stimulus across modalities would be better
remembered than neutral stimulus. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is
not enough evidence as to memory of an object, especially those that we encounter
in our daily lives, with respect to the type of emotion it provokes. To answer this
question we classified visual images as pleasant or unpleasant and compared their
recall. We hypothesized that recall of pleasant pictures should be better than recall
of unpleasant pictures.
A wide range of pictures or images are seen daily. Besides our natural habitat
they appear in books, television, advertisements, etc. Sometimes these images
become an important part of our functioning. For instance, while learning English
Preferences in Recall of Pleasant and Unpleasant Images 697

Fig. 1 English pre-school

book image with the letter ‘C’

alphabets it is important for a child to remember images associated with a particular

alphabet, say ‘C’ with the image of a cat. We choose images that would fall in
broad categories from whatever we encounter in our day-to-day life. While real life
experience forces us to see pleasant as well as unpleasant images/visuals, products
such as childen book that we design give us the freedom to select images that could
be either pleasant or unpleasant. Figures 1 and 2 respectively show the alphabet/
vyanjana and the corresponding images published in two different books for chil-
dren. While these letter-image pairs have associated two different animals (cat and
Ajagar/python) the designers and publishers of such books remain ignorant about
the emotional valence of the image and its effect on memory. In all likelihood one
of them might appear pleasant to the child while the other one might appear
unpleasant.
With an intention to gauge the differential emotional valence of things largely
available in our environment and the likelihood of these images being used as
examples in textbooks for children, we selected four groups of images—child,
adult, animal and landscape. Further, these image categories had pleasant,
unpleasant as well as neutral images. We were interested in seeing which of the
categories are remembered better than others. This brought us to our second
objective that was to see the effect of category on subsequent recall. Neutral images
were used only for comparing the effect of emotional valence.

Fig. 2 Ajagar/python image

in the Hindi pre-school book
698 M. Kumar et al.

2 Method

2.1 Participants

Thirty graduates, 22 males and 8 females, (Mean age = 26.7 years, SD = 4.5) from
a technical institute voluntarily participated in the study. The participants were
randomly selected from the pool of volunteers who gave their preference on the
basis of call from the first author. Students of design discipline were excluded from
the study to control for bias in visual aesthetics. Students’ with any type of
eye-defect were also excluded.

2.2 Materials

Test Stimuli The stimuli consisted of a pool of 60 images inspired from GAPED
[9]. These pictures had similar attributes and were culturally salient to the Indian
context. The reason for doing this was to avoid related issues because GAPED
consists of images from a different cultural background. The images were classified
on two parameters—type of emotion provoked (pleasant, unpleasant and neutral)
and category (child, adult animal and landscape). All the images were formatted to
maintain uniformity of width and height (640  480 pixels).
Rating of Images Participants’ were shown the images on Tobii TX300
eye-tracking monitor and were required to rate them for the intensity of emotion it
provoked using Self-assessment manikin method (SAM) [10].

3 Procedure

Participants were shown pleasant, unpleasant and neutral images on Tobii TX300
eye-tracking monitor at 1920  1080 resolution. Each images appeared on the
screen for a period of 5000 ms and was followed by a response screen where the
participants rated emotional intensity of the images. The participants were also
instructed to remember as many images as possible for the upcoming recall task.
They were provided with a blank sheet of paper and were instructed to write down
the keywords or enough explanation which could explain the image even to an
outsider. These images were further analyzed. Redundant information was excluded
from the study. Total administration time per participant was 5 min.
Preferences in Recall of Pleasant and Unpleasant Images 699

4 Results

This study examined the recall preference of pleasant and unpleasant images.
Table 1 shows the summary statistics of recall of pleasant, unpleasant and neutral
images. As summarized in Table 1, unpleasant images had the highest recall. This
was followed by pleasant images and then by the neutral images. The evidence of
effect of images was obtained using Bayesian model comparison which produced a
Bayes Factor of 120:1 against the null.
We also examined the recall preference for the content of the image. Figure 3
shows the mean for recall of each image category based on emotional valence of the
images and the content. Table 2 summarizes Bayesian model comparison for both
content and type of image. This analysis was run without including neutral images
because they were not grouped into any category based on content. Analysis pro-
duced a Bayes Factor of 36:1 in favor of the model including effect of type of
picture, its content and their interaction.
The findings suggest an interaction effect of emotional valence of the images and
category (see Fig. 3). Generally, participants recalled better when presented with
unpleasant pictures. However, for the landscape condition recall was better for
pleasant images. As illustrated in Figs. 1 and 2, images of animals such as cat and
python are used to help children learn alphabet-image association. In order to see
which visual cues are actually looked at, we examined the heatmaps of selected
images (see Figs. 4 and 5). The heatmaps make it very evident that not all visual

Table 1 Summary statistics Neutral Pleasant Unpleasant

for recall of images
Mean 2 3.6 4.267
SD 1.875 2.298 2.741

Fig. 3 Mean accuracy of participants’ recall under all conditions

700 M. Kumar et al.

Table 2 Bayes factor model comparison for recall of images based on content and types
Models P(M) P(M|data) BFM BF10
Null model (incl. subject) 0.2 0.027 0.11 1
Picture 0.2 0.01 0.041 0.383
Category 0.2 0.004 0.014 0.131
Picture + category 0.2 0.001 0.005 0.047
Picture + category + picture  category 0.2 0.958 91.632 35.752

Fig. 4 Image of cat shown to participants and heatmap indicating the area looked upon by the
participants

Fig. 5 Image of Ajagar (python) shown to participants and heatmap indicating the area looked
upon by the participants

cues are attended by human beings and specific cues appearing pleasing or
unpleasing are only attended to. Further, these cues helped the participants recall
the images during memory test.
Preferences in Recall of Pleasant and Unpleasant Images 701

5 Discussion

Emotional stimuli tend to affect a number of cognitive processes. Recall (memory) of

past/learned information is also affected by emotions. This is a well-established
finding in psychology and is known by an umbrella term mood congruency effect.
Thus, a material learned under influence of a physiological state will probably be
better recalled if the person is in the same state. This effect has been shown across
modalities and populations. Research, however, has not been well established about
the type of physiological state (or emotion) and subsequent recall in a baseline (or
neutral) state. Literature generally has not favored any mood over the other in terms of
recall. This study aimed at understanding which type of emotional stimuli (pleasant or
unpleasant) better aid recall for commonly encountered objects. There was no attempt
to induce emotional arousal in the participants except showing the pictures.
Since unpleasant stimuli generally tend to be avoided we hypothesized that
pleasant images would be recalled more than unpleasant images. Although we
obtained positive evidence for the effect of type of emotion on subsequent recall, it
was not in the same direction. Our data suggests that it is unpleasant images that
tend to be recalled more than pleasant pictures, although both of them were better
recalled than neutral images. This is in conformity with earlier findings that emo-
tional stimulus is better remembered than neutral stimulus [2, 3]. A possible reason
for this may be that unpleasant images tend to be more emotionally arousing
because of fearful themes such as python. This greater arousal would have led to
better remembering of these images. However, in our study we did not control for
arousal as the primary aim was to distinguish between the emotional valence and
recall. Future research must systematically manipulate the arousal produced by
emotional stimuli and see its effect on subsequent recall.
An emotional stimulus cannot exist without content. Thus, the images used in
our study were also classified according to four commonly occurring contents—
child, adult, animal and landscape. The contents were modified to make them
emotionally provoking either as pleasant or unpleasant. To see the effect of category
we conducted a repeated measure Bayesian model comparison and found evidence
for interactive effect picture valence and category. Findings generally indicate that
pictures were better recalled when they were unpleasant. This trend, however, is not
seen when considering animal and landscape pictures. In animal pictures there was
almost no effect of emotional valence. For landscape content pleasant pictures were
recalled more than unpleasant pictures.
Putting the results together we can conclude that emotion provoking pictures
tends to be better remembered than neutral pictures. Effect of type of emotion is,
however, not straightforward. It depends upon the content of the stimulus possibly
by affecting the state of emotional arousal. Future work will have to take into
account all three variables into consideration. Emotional arousal with a particular
valence and content should be varied to see the effect on recall. These studies will
require much more control and should also make use of psychophysiological
markers of arousal.
702 M. Kumar et al.

6 Implication for Design

These findings nevertheless have certain important implications for design. It has
been found that pleasing products work better and are easy to learn. Emotions aid in
decision making [11]. Consider the symbolic designs made for safety purposes such
as road safety design, emergency services, etc. Design of the shape and color in this
context does affect individual’s recall preference [12].
The findings of the present study can be considered while designing books or
comic strip for the children textbooks. Rather than having a neutral (black and blue
textbook) a designer can incorporate a storyline ultimately making the content more
pleasing and sensible. Use of colors and doodles might help the children to retain
the content for a longer period of time. However, one paradox can be the use of
unpleasant images in the textbook for a better memory recall. The emotion of fear
and anxiety leads to a better recall. However, a designer can induce unpleasant
images to help children learn avoidable objects in the environment. For example, an
image of a snake can not only be used to help the child remember letter-image
association, it can simultaneously help the child learn the list of dangerous
objects/creatures in the environment which one should also avoid. Such associa-
tions would serve safety and survival function as well.
In conclusion we may say that designers must consider a balance between the
beauty and usability of the products they make. Besides them the emotional valence
of the product should also be taken into account, especially the ones that serves
safety/survival functions.

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