Content uploaded by Gerald Clore
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Gerald Clore on Oct 06, 2017
Content may be subject to copyright.
PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Research Article
34
Copyright © 2002 American Psychological Society VOL. 13, NO. 1, JANUARY 2002
ATTENDING TO THE BIG PICTURE:
Mood and Global Versus Local Processing of Visual Information
Karen Gasper
1
and Gerald L. Clore
2
1
The Pennsylvania State University and
2
University of Virginia
Abstract—
Two experiments employed image-based tasks to test the
hypothesis that happier moods promote a greater focus on the forest
and sadder moods a greater focus on the trees. The hypothesis was
based on the idea that in task situations, affective cues may be experi-
enced as task-relevant information, which then influences global ver-
sus local attention. Using a serial-reproduction paradigm, Experiment
1 showed that individuals in sad moods were less likely than those in
happier moods to use an accessible global concept to guide attempts
to reproduce a drawing from memory. Experiment 2 investigated the
same hypothesis by assessing the use of global and local attributes to
classify geometric figures. As predicted, individuals in sad moods were
less likely than those in happier moods to classify figures on the basis
of global features.
Feelings can influence the way people think about their world. Pos-
itive mood is associated with using stereotypes (Bodenhausen, Kramer,
& Susser, 1994), scripts (Bless et al., 1996), and expectations (Isbell,
1999), whereas negative mood is associated with greater accuracy
(Alloy, Abramson, & Viscusi, 1981), lower false positive recognition
(Bless et al., 1996), and resistance to heuristic error (Gasper, 1999).
Sometimes these mood effects are viewed as biases in judgment or
disruptions in processing. Increasingly, however, psychologists are
adopting a functional view of affect (e.g., Damasio, 1994; Forgas,
1995; Salovey & Mayer, 1990). For example, the affect-as-informa-
tion approach (Schwarz & Clore, 1983, 1988, 1996) sees affective
feelings as consciously accessible information from ongoing, noncon-
scious appraisals. Recent versions of this approach (e.g., Clore &
Gasper, 2000; Clore, Wyer, et al., 2001; Wyer, Clore, & Isbell, 1999)
also propose that in task situations, cues from happy and sad moods
may be experienced as information that promotes attention to global
and local information, respectively. In this article, we report two ex-
periments investigating this
levels-of-focus
hypothesis. Before elabo-
rating this hypothesis, we discuss the affect-as-information approach.
The general approach assumes that feelings guide processing when
they are experienced as information relevant to the task at hand. Al-
though positive feelings usually confer positive value and negative
feelings confer negative value, the object of value depends on what is
in mind at the time. What is in mind during cognitive tasks may in-
clude the beliefs, expectations, and inclinations that are most accessi-
ble. If so, then on such tasks, affective feelings may be experienced as
information about the value of such accessible information, with posi-
tive affect promoting greater reliance on accessible information than
negative affect does.
To test these ideas, Bless et al. (1996) examined mood effects on
recognition memory for a story about a couple going out to dinner.
They found that participants in happy moods tended to rely on the ac-
cessible knowledge (i.e., the restaurant script) to organize and remem-
ber the story more than individuals in sad moods did. Individuals in
sad moods focused instead on the incoming information about specific
behaviors. Presumably, these results were due to the ambient feelings
of mood being misattributed to the task and experienced as informa-
tion about the appropriateness of relying on accessible knowledge
(e.g., the script). In related research, this informational hypothesis was
tested by including conditions that made it clear that feelings were ir-
relevant to the task at hand. Under those conditions, mood effects
were invariably eliminated or reversed, implicating the information
value of the affective cues as the critical factor in them. Such reversals
have been found for the effects of mood both on judgment (e.g.,
Gasper & Clore, 1998, 2000; Schwarz & Clore, 1983) and on perfor-
mance (e.g., Dienes, 1996; Isbell, 1999; Sinclair, Mark, & Clore,
1994).
An implication of this research that has not been previously tested
concerns the role of mood in global versus local processing. Research
indicates that focusing on global rather than local stimuli is usually the
dominant, accessible strategy. In visual perception research, Navon
(1977) showed that global features take precedence over local fea-
tures, so that focusing on the forest is a more accessible strategy than
focusing on the trees. Similarly, Fiske and Taylor (1991) concluded
that attending to global, general information is a normative, and hence
accessible, strategy. If positive feelings are experienced more than
negative feelings as informing individuals that the accessible strategy
is sufficient, and the global strategy is generally highly accessible,
then positive feelings should foster more global processing than do
negative feelings. A second reason to expect such a link comes from
action identification theory. Vallacher and Wegner (1987) showed that
after a success, individuals are likely to describe their actions in terms
of general goals. And after encountering an obstacle, individuals are
likely to describe their actions in terms of specific, detailed goals.
These findings also are consistent with the idea that positive affect
promotes a more global focus than does negative affect. Therefore, the
levels-of-focus hypothesis (Clore, Wyer, et al., 2001) proposes that af-
fective feelings, when experienced as task-relevant information,
should influence the extent to which information is processed at a glo-
bal versus local level. This general association between affect and
level of focus also is implied by other formulations maintaining that
positive moods should be associated with information integration
(Isen, 1987), with reliance on general as opposed to detailed informa-
tion (Schwarz, 1990), and with the use of general knowledge struc-
tures (Bless & Fiedler, 1995).
We investigated the levels-of-focus hypothesis in two experiments
that involved visual information processing. The first experiment ex-
amined whether mood would play a role in one of Bartlett’s classic
memory experiments. Using his method of serial reproduction, Bart-
lett (1932) found that global schemas were used to interpret and re-
construct previous experience. For example, he showed participants a
drawing of an African shield, which they were later asked to draw
Address correspondence to Karen Gasper, The Pennsylvania State Univer-
sity, Department of Psychology, 437 Moore Building, University Park, PA
16802; e-mail: kxg20@psu.edu.
PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Karen Gasper and Gerald L. Clore
VOL. 13, NO. 1, JANUARY 2002
35
from memory. Their drawings were then shown to other participants,
who subsequently tried to reproduce them from memory. These repro-
ductions were then given to a third group to draw, and so on. Beneath
the original drawing (see Fig. 1) was written, “portrait d’homme”
(“portrait of a man”). Bartlett found that over trials, the drawings were
gradually assimilated to the schema of a face, a global concept made
accessible by the title of the picture. This task illustrates how global
information can guide processing and help reconstruct memory. Bart-
lett’s paradigm allowed us to study the relative emphasis that people
give to global cognitive concepts and local perceptual details. If affect
is experienced as information about one’s initial orientation to the
task, then positive feelings should lead to a greater focus on the global
schema than negative feelings do. Thus, reproductions of this drawing
should become increasingly facelike if participants are in positive
moods because their attention will be guided by the global concept
“portrait,” but reproductions should look less facelike if participants
are in negative moods because their focus will be on perceptual details
of the drawing.
EXPERIMENT 1
Method
Participants
Fifty-six men, 51 women, and 1 respondent who did not indicate
his or her sex participated in the experiment for credit toward a course
requirement.
Materials and procedure
After an introductory period, respondents wrote about a personal
life event that had made them feel either “happy and positive” or “sad
and negative” (Schwarz & Clore, 1983). The purpose of asking for de-
scriptions of life events was disguised in a cover story about obtaining
information about personality. After 9 min, the experimenter stopped
the participants and told them that they were going to see a drawing
and should “figure out what the picture is and what it means.” Respon-
dents studied the drawing for 15 s, completed miscellaneous question-
naires for 8 min (a delay), and then attempted to reproduce the
drawing from memory.
Each session included 3 to 9 participants who were randomly as-
signed to one of 18 (9 happy, 9 sad) drawing chains. The experiment
was run until all 18 groups had at least 6 participants in them. The first
person in each group saw a drawing of an African shield with the title
“portrait d’homme.” In a later session, a person saw that first person’s
attempt at a reproduction, and then in the next session the next person
saw that person’s reproduction, and so on until there were six repro-
ductions, all in the same mood condition.
Subjective ratings.
Without being able to refer to any of the draw-
ings, participants made several ratings of their drawings from memory
using a scale ranging from 0 (
does not describe it
) to 10 (
perfectly de-
scribes it
). They rated how much their drawing looked like a
face
(three items;
.80), how well they recalled the
title
(two items;
r
.52), and whether the drawing was in an abstract or realistic
style
(three items;
.60). Respondents also rated their drawing for how
well they had recalled the details, how difficult it had been to draw,
how close it was to the drawing that they had seen, and how many de-
tails they had added and deleted. Finally, they were asked how “happy
and positive” and “sad and negative” they had felt writing their stories,
on a scale ranging from 0 (
not at all
) to 7 (
very
).
Objective ratings.
Objective ratings of each drawing on five di-
mensions were obtained from at least three trained raters who were
blind to condition. Drawings were randomized for rating. The ratings
used a scale from 0 (
not at all
) to 10 (
exactly
) and were highly reli-
able. The dimensions rated and the degree of agreement among raters
were as follows: (a) For the
original
dimension (
.96), raters an-
swered the question, “Overall, how much does the picture look like
the original picture?” (The raters compared the picture to the original
drawing.) (b) For the
face
dimension (
.98), the following ques-
tions were
z
-scored and averaged together: “How much does the pic-
ture resemble a face?” “Does the picture contain an eyelike structure?”
and “Does the picture contain a mouthlike structure?” (c) For the
title
dimension (
.99), the question was, “How close is the wording on
the picture to the original wording?” (d) For the
complexity
dimension
(
.88), raters answered, “How complex is the drawing?” (e) Fi-
nally, the pictures were organized by drawing groups, and each was
rated for the extent to which it looked like the drawing immediately
prior to it in the chain (the
prior
dimension;
.93).
Results
The data were analyzed at the group level using a series of 2
(mood: happy vs. sad)
6 (drawing position) analyses of variance
(ANOVAs), with drawing position as a repeated measures variable.
Mood check
The mood manipulation was effective. Participants felt more posi-
tive (
M
s
4.65 vs. 2.16),
F
(1, 16)
32.25,
p
.001, and less nega-
tive (
M
s
1.61 vs. 4.70),
F
(1, 16)
108.94,
p
.001, after writing
about a happy event than after writing about a sad event.
Objective ratings
Analyses of the ratings made by coders showed that mood affected
the drawings as predicted. Compared with individuals in sad moods,
those in happy moods organized their drawings in terms of the global
schematic concept suggested by the title (see Table 1). Their drawings
were more likely to contain schema-relevant details, such as the title
(
M
s
3.16 vs. 0.95),
F
(1, 16)
5.79,
p
.05, and facial features
(
M
s
0.38 vs.
0.38),
F
(1, 16)
4.39,
p
.05.
Across the six reproductions in each group, the drawings generally
lost details. They began to look less like the original,
F
(5, 80)
31.28,
p
.001; were less likely to contain the title,
F
(5, 80)
19.43,
p
.001; became less complex,
F
(5, 80)
10.61,
p
.001; and looked
more like the drawing preceding them,
F
(5, 80)
2.99,
p
.05.
As predicted, these trends differed by mood. Sad-mood drawings
became less facelike with successive reproductions,
F
(5, 80)
3.68,
p
.01, whereas happy-mood drawings did not,
F
1. Also, com-
pared with happy-mood drawings, sad-mood drawings looked less like
the original drawing (
M
s
2.59 vs. 4.37),
F
(1, 16)
10.72,
p
.01,
and less like the immediately prior drawing in the chain (
M
s
6.40
vs. 7.33),
F
(1, 16)
8.28,
p
.05. This finding was particularly true
near the beginnings of the chains; toward the ends of the chains, when
drawings became simplified, the drawings of individuals in sad moods
showed an increasing tendency to resemble the immediately prior
drawings,
F
(5, 80)
2.19,
p
.07 (see Table 1).
PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Mood and Global Versus Local Processing
36
VOL. 13, NO. 1, JANUARY 2002
Subjective ratings
Participants’ ratings of their own drawings produced similar re-
sults. Over trials, the drawings looked less like faces,
F
(5, 80)
2.95,
p
.01, and were less likely to contain a title,
F
(5, 80)
16.11,
p
.001. Planned contrasts revealed that the extent to which the pictures
degraded depended on mood (see Table 1). As the number of repro-
ductions increased, sad-mood drawings lost their global features and
looked less facelike,
F
(5, 80)
3.81,
p
.01. In contrast, drawings of
participants in happy moods retained the global features and facelike
appearance (
F
1). Also, sad participants were less likely than happy
participants to recall the title that provided the schema (
M
s
3.67 vs.
5.00),
F(1, 16) 5.23, p .05. In general, mood influenced subjec-
tive ratings that were relevant to the global schema of the pictures
(face and title ratings) but not ratings relevant to the aschematic (i.e.,
style, all ps .29) aspects of the pictures.
Although mood influenced the content of the pictures, it had no ef-
fects on reports of ability or motivation to reproduce the pictures. Rat-
ings of details recalled and task difficulty were influenced only by
drawing position, F(5, 80) 2.73, p .05, and F(5, 80) 6.35, p
.01, respectively. The three ratings that reflected faithfulness of the re-
productions were also influenced only by drawing position: for simi-
larity to the prior drawing, F(5, 80) 5.82, p .01; for details added,
F(5, 80) 4.63, p .01; and for details deleted, F(5, 80) 7.22, p
.01. (See Table 2.)
Discussion
This experiment examined the effect of mood on memory for an
abstract drawing that suggested a facial schema. Consistent with pre-
dictions, the results indicate that compared with individuals in happier
moods, those in sadder moods were less likely to rely on the global in-
formation suggested by the title and form of the picture. Conse-
quently, they drew pictures that were less like the original, less like a
face, and less likely to contain the title. Such differences were appar-
ent in both objective and subjective ratings and became greater in later
Fig. 1. A sample of serial reproductions of a drawing from memory. From Remembering: A
Study in Experimental and Social Psychology, by F.C. Bartlett, 1932, pp. 175–176. Copyright
1932 by Cambridge University Press. Reprinted with permission.
PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Karen Gasper and Gerald L. Clore
VOL. 13, NO. 1, JANUARY 2002 37
Table 1. Average objective and subjective ratings by mood and drawing position in Experiment 1
Rating dimension
and mood
Drawing position
SignificanceOverall 1 2 3456
Objective ratings
Original
Happy 4.37** 6.55 4.99 4.23 4.09 3.19 2.99 ***
(1.96) (1.87) (1.99) (1.87) (0.89) (1.61) (1.24)
Sad 2.59 5.75 3.74 2.19 1.84 1.14 0.87 ***
(2.25) (2.13) (1.92) (1.51) (1.43) (1.02) (0.87)
Face
Happy 0.38* 0.43 0.39 0.31 0.42 0.46 0.27 n.s.
(0.85) (0.41) (0.63) (0.85) (0.99) (1.10) (1.11)
Sad 0.38 0.01 0.01 0.44 0.42 0.77 0.69 **
(0.94) (0.88) (0.92) (0.94) (1.00) (0.88) (0.95)
Title
Happy 3.16* 7.56 4.09 3.67 1.63 1.02 1.02 ***
(4.04) (4.30) (4.72) (4.15) (2.32) (2.09) (2.09)
Sad 0.95 5.14 0.33 0.19 0.00 0.00 0.00 ***
(2.57) (4.29) (1.00) (0.58) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00)
Prior
Happy 7.33** 6.55 6.63 7.44 7.57 7.98 7.82 n.s.
(1.62) (1.72) (1.85) (1.22) (1.48) (0.83) (2.15)
Sad 6.40 5.75 5.33 6.06 7.28 6.63 7.34
(1.83) (2.13) (1.54) (2.21) (1.34) (1.48) (1.60)
Subjective ratings
Face
Happy 5.50 n.s. 5.85 5.59 5.26 6.30 4.70 4.96 n.s.
(2.44) (2.42) (2.15) (2.13) (2.91) (2.64) (2.54)
Sad 4.78 5.67 6.37 5.89 4.07 3.30 3.37 **
(2.75) (2.34) (2.29) (1.97) (2.39) (3.66) (2.44)
Title
Happy 5.00* 8.00 5.89 5.33 4.33 3.83 2.61 ***
(3.04) (2.44) (1.45) (2.00) (3.69) (3.15) (2.43)
Sad 3.67 8.44 4.17 2.72 3.11 2.78 0.78 ***
(3.21) (1.33) (2.65) (2.54) (2.43) (2.55) (1.72)
Note. Standard deviations are in parentheses. The objective face ratings are based on z-scored data. Asterisks in the overall-mean column indicate a
significant main effect of mood. The last column indicates whether the planned comparison for the effect of drawing position within each mood condition
is significant. Data for complexity and style are not shown because ratings on these dimensions were not significantly influenced by mood and drawing
order.
p .10. *p .05. **p .01. ***p .001.
reproductions. Moreover, mood generally affected the content of the
drawings, but not the complexity of the drawings or participants’ be-
liefs about their ability to reproduce the pictures.
These results are consistent with the hypothesis that affective feel-
ings influence the kind of information to which one attends (Clore,
Gasper, & Garvin, 2001; Clore, Wyer, et al., 2001; Wyer et al., 1999).
However, there are alternative possible accounts. Most other explana-
tions assume that mood has its effects by influencing the amount of
processing. Capacity explanations assume that happy moods activate a
larger network of associations than sad moods, thereby reducing the
resources available for effortful processing (Mackie & Worth, 1989;
Worth & Mackie, 1987). Motivational explanations assume that par-
ticipants avoid expending effort on tasks that are not enjoyable in or-
der to maintain their currently happy state (Isen, 1987; Wegener, Petty,
& Smith, 1995). Alternatively, the information provided by positive
affect may signal that one’s goal has already been achieved (Martin,
Ward, Achee, & Wyer, 1993) or that further processing is unnecessary
(Clore, Schwarz, & Conway, 1994). Thus, compared with sadder moods,
moods that are more positive might lead to reduced processing by de-
creasing the capacity, the motivation, or the apparent necessity for fur-
ther processing.
The current results are more consistent with hypotheses about glo-
bal-local attention than with hypotheses about amount of processing.
The results provide no evidence that sad affect elicited more extensive
processing than did positive affect. Participants in sadder moods did
not have superior recall of the picture, produce more complex draw-
ings, or demonstrate better overall performance than those in happier
moods. In fact, their drawings looked less like the original than those
of happy participants.
This pattern suggests that negative affect inhibited a global focus.
Consequently, sad participants did not use the global schema to help
reconstruct the image. In contrast, more positive affective feelings re-
PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Mood and Global Versus Local Processing
38 VOL. 13, NO. 1, JANUARY 2002
sulted in a focus on global aspects, because participants relied on the
title and form of the drawing as a guide. The stimuli that individuals
focused on, however, also differed along a variety of other dimen-
sions. For instance, individuals in happy moods also focused on the
lexical aspects more than those in sad moods, and perhaps this ex-
plains their apparent focus on global features. To rule out such alterna-
tive explanations, we conducted a second experiment that examined
whether the same pattern of results could be obtained with stimuli for
which the global and local aspects were more similar.
Experiment 2 employed a task in which the same objects were
sometimes the global and sometimes the local stimulus (Kimchi &
Palmer, 1982). Participants saw an overall shape (e.g., a triangle)
made up of smaller geometric figures (e.g., triangles). Their task was
to indicate which of two other figures (e.g., a square made of triangles
or a triangle made of squares) was more similar to this target figure
(see Fig. 2). To the extent that mood influences attention to global ver-
sus local aspects of stimuli, individuals in sad moods should be less
likely than those in happier moods to match figures based on the over-
all global shape of the target and more likely to match figures based on
the smaller, local, constituent figures.
EXPERIMENT 2
In this experiment, we investigated the levels-of-focus hypothesis
by asking participants to rate whether a target object was more similar
to an object that matched its global, but not local, aspects or one that
matched its local, but not global, aspects. This task differed from that
in Experiment 1 in that it did not involve exerting effort to remember
the image. Also, because the global versus local role of the geometric
figures was varied experimentally, that was the only attribute on which
the stimuli differed.
We included a neutral-mood condition, in addition to happy- and
sad-mood conditions. The affect-as-information hypothesis predicts
that positive affect promotes reliance on responses that are accessible
or normative. Research suggests that people generally tend to be in
positive moods (Diener & Diener, 1996). Moreover, the research indi-
cating that attention to global information is a dominant response was
conducted on participants in neutral moods. These two findings cou-
pled together led us to expect that the neutral-mood responses would
differ more from sad-mood responses than from happy-mood re-
sponses.
Method
Participants
Thirty-one men and 38 women participated in the experiment for
credit toward a requirement in their introductory psychology class.
Materials and procedure
The mood-induction procedure was similar to that used in the first
experiment, but with the addition of the neutral-mood condition. In the
neutral condition, participants wrote about an “average, normal, typi-
cal weekday.” After writing for 9 min, participants received the shape
task. On each trial, they had to indicate which of two comparison fig-
ures was more similar to a target figure (see Kimchi & Palmer, 1982).
Each figure could be viewed from either a global or a local perspective
(see Fig. 2). Each object was either a square or a triangle (global form)
made up of smaller squares or triangles (local forms).
For each of 24 trials, participants indicated whether a target figure
was more similar to a group of objects that matched its global shape or
to a group of objects that matched its local components. The global
forms fit into a 32-mm square, and the local forms into either an 8-mm
square or a 10-mm square. Analyses revealed that the sizes of the
stimuli did not influence the results. The forms were combined to
make 12 combinations that were presented twice, to counterbalance
whether the local match appeared on the right or the left.
After the shape task, participants completed irrelevant tasks for
about 8 min. Then they indicated the extent to which they were cur-
rently experiencing various feelings, using a scale ranging from 0 (not
at all) to 4 (extremely). These ratings formed measures of positive af-
fect ( .89: happy, glad, joyous, excited, elated, pleasant, and en-
thusiastic) and negative affect ( .84: unhappy, afraid, anxious, sad,
unhappy, nervous, unpleasant, depressed, and frustrated). Respon-
Table 2. Average effect of drawing position on participants’
impressions about the task in Experiment 1
Drawing position
Rating dimension 123456
Details recalled 2.28 2.83 2.78 3.17 3.72 3.11
(2.99) (3.47) (3.42) (4.08) (4.48) (2.31)
Difficulty 4.94 4.72 3.56 3.06 1.44 2.11
(2.31) (2.78) (2.23) (2.69) (1.58) (2.11)
Similarity to prior 5.44 5.83 6.78 7.72 7.89 7.94
drawing (1.95) (1.98) (2.02) (1.49) (2.05) (1.70)
Details added 2.56 3.06 1.72 1.44 0.67 1.39
(2.09) (1.83) (1.78) (1.46) (0.84) (1.85)
Details deleted 4.67 4.56 2.61 3.44 1.39 1.83
(1.85) (2.68) (1.54) (2.66) (1.33) (1.95)
Note. Standard deviations are in parentheses. On all these measures,
there was a significant effect for drawing position.
Fig. 2. Sample item from the global-local focus test (Kimchi
&
Palmer, 1982, p. 526). Reprinted with the permission of R. Kimchi.
PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Karen Gasper and Gerald L. Clore
VOL. 13, NO. 1, JANUARY 2002 39
dents also rated how writing about the personal life event made them
feel, on a scale ranging from 0 (very negative) to 10 (very positive).
Additionally, they answered the following questions on a scale rang-
ing from 0 (not at all) to 10 (always; 5 half of the time): “When you
did the shape task, to what extent did you say that the shapes go to-
gether based on the overall similarity in the form of the pictures (a
square of triangles goes with a square of squares)?” and “To what ex-
tent did you match the shapes based on the individual elements in
them (a square of triangles goes with a triangle of triangles)?”
Results
Mood-manipulation check
According to the self-reports, writing about the life event made in-
dividuals in the negative-mood condition feel less positive than those
in the positive- and neutral-mood conditions (Ms 4.00 vs. 6.67 and
6.05), F(1, 66) 19.56, p .001. The measures of positive and nega-
tive affect showed the same pattern. A 3 (mood) 2 (valence of af-
fect) ANOVA, with valence of affect being a repeated measure,
revealed that individuals in the positive- and neutral-mood conditions
tended to report more positive than negative affect compared with
those in the negative-mood condition (Mdiff 0.29 and 0.69 vs. 0.19),
F(1, 66) 3.29, p .07.
Shape task
The number of times that participants matched the shapes on the
basis of their global form rather than their local details was calculated.
As predicted, individuals in negative moods were less likely than indi-
viduals in positive or neutral moods to use the global form as a basis
for matching the objects (Ms 11.76 vs. 15.88 and 15.35), F(1, 66)
4.05, p .05. Participants’ self-reports indicated that they also accu-
rately perceived the basis of their choices. Participants in sad moods
reported basing their choices less on the global forms than did partici-
pants in positive moods (Ms 5.36 vs. 7.00), F(1, 66) 3.52, p
.07. They also reported basing their choices more on the local details
than did individuals in positive moods (Ms 4.88 vs. 3.08), F(1, 66)
4.09, p .05.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
These two experiments indicate that individuals in sad moods are
less likely to see the forest and more likely to see the trees than indi-
viduals in happier moods. Specifically, when affective feelings are ex-
perienced as task relevant, they appear to guide whether one adopts a
global or a more local focus. Experiment 1 examined this issue by
varying mood in a replication of Bartlett’s (1932) classic study of con-
structive memory. The details of an ambiguous drawing were assimi-
lated to the global schema of a human face more by people in happier
than by those in sadder moods. This pattern was confirmed in a second
experiment in which geometric figures were categorized by their glo-
bal shape more by people in manipulated and resting happy moods
than by those in sad moods.
It should be noted that participants in the neutral-mood condition
of Experiment 2 rated their mood as quite positive and showed a glo-
bal focus similar to that of participants in the positive-mood condition.
Prior research indicates that the average resting mood of most people
is quite positive (Diener & Diener, 1996). Thus, the fact that both
groups reported elevated positive affect and both engaged in global fo-
cus supports the idea that the information provided by positive affec-
tive cues, whether resting or manipulated positive affect, fosters global
processing.
The results are consistent with the levels-of-focus hypothesis
(Clore, Gasper, & Garvin, 2001; Clore, Wyer, et al., 2001), which pro-
poses that when affect is experienced as task-relevant information,
positive affect privileges global, category-level attention more than
does negative affect. In contrast, the results do not appear to reflect
differing amounts of processing. The more extensive processing often
assumed to be associated with sad mood should not have influenced
the classification of geometric figures (Experiment 2), nor the ten-
dency to inhibit incorporation of schematic information (Experiment
1). These data are consistent with previous research indicating that in
task situations, affect may provide information about the value of ac-
cessible beliefs and inclinations. Moreover, the results extend this
logic to show that such affective information also influences global
versus local visual processing.
Supporting evidence for the informational interpretation of such
processing effects comes from previous studies that manipulated the
apparent information value of the induced feelings (e.g., Dienes, 1996;
Isbell, 1999; Sinclair et al., 1994). For example, Isbell (1999) showed
that individuals in happy moods used global stereotypes, whereas
those in sad moods focused more on specific behaviors, when forming
impressions of a character in a story. However, when the true cause of
the participants’ feelings was made salient before they read the story
(undermining the information value of their feelings), the effects of
mood were reversed, suggesting that the effects were mediated by the
apparent informativeness of mood-based feelings.
Although the current experiments are some of the first to illustrate
the effects of state affect on global versus local processing, similar re-
sults have been reported for trait affect. Basso, Schefft, Ris, and Dem-
ber (1996) found that global classification was positively associated
with trait happiness and optimism, and negatively correlated with trait
depression and anxiety. Derryberry and Reed (1998) also found that
attention to local details was associated with trait anxiety in threat-ori-
ented situations. Thus, situational and chronic affect might influence
these processes via similar mechanisms. The results suggest that posi-
tive and negative affective cues make different, but perhaps equally
important, contributions to information processing. For example, posi-
tive affect might elicit attention to the larger meaning of poetry, music,
and art, whereas negative affect might focus attention on the meter of
the poetry, the rhythm of the music, and the texture of a brush stroke.
The findings suggest that one’s perception of novel stimuli involves an
interplay of both local and global attention that is guided by positive
and negative affective reactions.
REFERENCES
Alloy, L.B., Abramson, L.Y., & Viscusi, D. (1981). Induced mood and the illusion of con-
trol. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41, 1129–1140.
Acknowledgments—This research was supported by National Science
Foundation Grant SBR 96-01298, National Institute of Mental Health
Grant MH 50074, and a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Grant (32005-0) to the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sci-
ences. We thank Margaret Kosman, Angela Scarpaci, Carrie Grady, Nerissa
Beltran, Matt Gelsthorpe, Sarah Oschack, Adam Joncich, Irene Piven, Di-
ana Risotto, Sarah Riley, and Rachel Malis for assistance in data collection
and coding.
PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Mood and Global Versus Local Processing
40 VOL. 13, NO. 1, JANUARY 2002
Bartlett, F.C. (1932). Remembering: A study in experimental and social psychology. Cam-
bridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Basso, M.R., Schefft, B.K., Ris, M.D., & Dember, W.N. (1996). Mood and global-local vi-
sual processing. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 2, 249–255.
Bless, H., Clore, G.L., Schwarz, N., Golisano, V., Rabe, C., & Wölk, M. (1996). Mood and
the use of scripts: Does happy mood really lead to mindlessness? Journal of Person-
ality and Social Psychology, 71, 665–679.
Bless, H., & Fiedler, K. (1995). Affective states and the influence of activated general
knowledge. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 766–778.
Bodenhausen, G.V., Kramer, G.P., & Susser, K. (1994). Happiness and stereotypic think-
ing in social judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 621–632.
Clore, G.L., & Gasper, K. (2000). Feeling is believing: Some affective influences on be-
lief. In N. Frijda, T. Manstead, & S. Bem (Eds.), Emotions and beliefs (pp. 10–44).
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Clore, G.L., Gasper, K., & Garvin, E. (2001). Affect as information. In J.P. Forgas (Ed.),
Handbook of affect and social cognition (pp. 121–144). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Clore, G.L., Schwarz, N., & Conway, M. (1994). Affective causes and consequences of so-
cial information processing. In R.S. Wyer & T.K. Srull (Eds.), Handbook of social
cognition (2nd ed., pp. 323–341). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Clore, G.L., Wyer, R.S., Dienes, B., Gasper, K., Gohm, C., & Isbell, L. (2001). Affective
feelings as feedback: Some cognitive consequences. In L.L. Martin & G.L. Clore
(Eds.), Theories of mood and cognition: A user’s guide (pp. 27–62). Mahwah, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Damasio, A.R. (1994). Descartes’ error: Emotion, reason and the human brain. New
York: Grosset/Putnam.
Derryberry, D., & Reed, M.A. (1998). Anxiety and attentional focusing: Trait, state and
hemispheric influences. Personality and Individual Differences, 25, 745–761.
Diener, E., & Diener, C. (1996). Most people are happy. Psychological Science, 7, 181–185.
Dienes, B.P.A. (1996). Mood as information: Affective cues for cognitive processing
styles. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana.
Fiske, S.T., & Taylor, S.E. (1991). Social cognition. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Forgas, J.P. (1995). Mood and judgment: The affect infusion model (AIM). Psychological
Bulletin, 117, 39–66.
Gasper, K. (1999). How thought and emotional awareness influence the role of affect in
processing: When attempts to be reasonable fail. Unpublished doctoral dissertation,
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Gasper, K., & Clore, G.L. (1998). The persistent use of negative affect by anxious individ-
uals to estimate risk. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1350–1363.
Gasper, K., & Clore, G.L. (2000). Do you have to pay attention to your feelings in order to
be influenced by them? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 698–711.
Isbell, L.M. (1999). Beyond heuristic information processing: Systematic processing in
happy and sad moods. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois, Ur-
bana-Champaign.
Isen, A.M. (1987). Positive affect, cognitive process, and social behavior. In L. Berkowitz
(Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (pp. 203–253). San Diego: Aca-
demic Press.
Kimchi, R., & Palmer, S.E. (1982). Form and texture in hierarchically constructed pat-
terns. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 8,
521–535.
Mackie, D.M., & Worth, L.T. (1989). Processing deficits and the mediation of positive af-
fect in persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 27–40.
Martin, L.L., Ward, D.W., Achee, J.W., & Wyer, R.S. (1993). Mood as input: People have
to interpret the motivational implications of their moods. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 64, 317–326.
Navon, D. (1977). The forest before trees: The precedence of global features in visual per-
ception. Cognitive Psychology, 9, 353–383.
Salovey, P., & Mayer, J.D. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition, and
Personality, 9, 185–211.
Schwarz, N. (1990). Feelings as information: Informational and motivational functions of
affective states. In E.T. Higgins & R.M. Sorrentino (Eds.), Handbook of motivation
and cognition: Foundations of social behavior (Vol. 2, pp. 527–561). New York:
Guilford Press.
Schwarz, N., & Clore, G.L. (1983). Mood, misattribution, and judgments of well-being:
Informative and directive functions of affective states. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 45, 513–523.
Schwarz, N., & Clore, G.L. (1988). How do I feel about it? The informative function of af-
fective states. In K. Fiedler & J. Forgas (Eds.), Affect, cognition and social behav-
ior: New evidence and integrative attempts (pp. 44–62). Toronto, Ontario, Canada:
C.J. Hogrefe.
Schwarz, N., & Clore, G.L. (1996). Feelings and phenomenal experiences. In E.T. Higgins
& A. Kruglanski (Eds.), Social psychology: A handbook of basic principles (pp.
433–465). New York: Guilford Press.
Sinclair, R.C., Mark, M.M., & Clore, G.L. (1994). Mood-related persuasion depends on
(mis)attributions. Social Cognition, 12, 309–326.
Vallacher, R.R., & Wegner, D.M. (1987). What do people think they’re doing? Action
identification and human behavior. Psychological Review, 94, 3–15.
Wegener, D.T., Petty, R.E., & Smith, S.M. (1995). Positive moods can increase or decrease
message scrutiny: The hedonic contingency view of mood and message processing.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 5–15.
Worth, L.T., & Mackie, D.M. (1987). Cognitive mediation of positive affect in persuasion.
Social Cognition, 5, 76–94.
Wyer, R.S., Clore, G.L., & Isbell, L. (1999). Affect and information processing. In M.
Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 31, pp. 1–77). New
York: Academic Press.
(RECEIVED 3/8/00; REVISION ACCEPTED 3/17/01)
