Behavioral assessment of emotional and motivational appraisal during visual processing of emotional scenes depending on spatial frequencies

• Emotional and motivational appraisal affect visual processing of information.
• Effect based on selection and attention on a specific type of spatial frequency.
• HSF (high spatial frequencies) are relevant for emotional experience identification.
• LSF (low spatial frequencies) are relevant for identification of tendency to action.
• Tendency to action has priority compared to emotional identification.

Previous studies performed on visual processing of emotional stimuli have revealed preference for a specific type of visual spatial frequencies (high spatial frequency, HSF; low spatial frequency, LSF) according to task demands. The majority of studies used a face and focused on the appraisal of the emotional state of others. The present behavioral study investigates the relative role of spatial frequencies on processing emotional natural scenes during two explicit cognitive appraisal tasks, one emotional, based on the self-emotional experience and one motivational, based on the tendency to action. Our results suggest that HSF information was the most relevant to rapidly identify the self-emotional experience (unpleasant, pleasant, and neutral) while LSF was required to rapidly identify the tendency to action (avoidance, approach, and no action). The tendency to action based on LSF analysis showed a priority for unpleasant stimuli whereas the identification of emotional experience based on HSF analysis showed a priority for pleasant stimuli. The present study confirms the interest of considering both emotional and motivational characteristics of visual stimuli.