anchoring

In principle, we can set anchors through any of our sensory channels. The best way to do this is in your preferred representation system (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, or gustatory). The next two lessons will focus on the power of images, and in the following lesson on smells. Both perception channels represent strong anchors.

How do images influence our emotions?

Images determine our emotions – they are strongly connected to what we have once experienced. They imprint themselves deeper into our memory than words and influence our attitude. Not only rhetoric, but also autogenic training, advertising, suggestopedia, or hypnosis take advantage of the effect of images.

A first step in explaining how images determine our emotions is to clarify how we perceive the outside world and what the brain makes of what we see. For it is not the eyes, but the brain that explains the world to us. Insights into the question of how the nerve cells react and cooperate when seeing – that is, how our brain sees – help scientists discover structures in the apparent chaos in our heads.

Humans fundamentally see by light from an object hitting the eye, being converted into an electrical signal, and being transmitted via nerve fibers to the visual cortex. Each area has a simple task, such as size, memory, or color. The individual components are compared with memories that one had to learn as a child. In individual cases, this proceeds as follows:

“An object is naturally characterized by a collection of features. For example, if a red-and-white cup is to be represented – especially if it moves from left to right – then cells that respond to movement, along with cells that respond to red, white, and round shapes, would work together simultaneously. The brain must now perform a copying function and determine which of the many responses belong together and define an object.”

Emotionally arousing events typically lead to hormone releases in our brain. These are usually catecholamines, which ensure that events in such situations, experienced in a state of arousal, are better consolidated in memory than others. If one repeatedly experiences these emotionally arousing events, they create memory traces in the brain, as neuroscientists found when studying the hippocampus – a central memory region. Our experiences constantly create new "memory traces". Even painful experiences that we would rather forget can shape the nerve cells for a lifetime.

That experiences change emotions was discovered by psychologists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They investigated how children categorize facial expressions as "happy", "sad", "angry", or "fearful". However, the young participants had already had a certain experience – physical abuse.

The experiment was designed as a computer game. In one of the "games" the children saw a single face and had to indicate which emotion it expressed most clearly. Since many images show a mix of emotions, the scientists were able to determine how the children perceived different expressions. They found that both groups categorized the shown emotional facial expressions with significant differences.

While both the abused and non-abused children reacted similarly to expressions of happiness, sadness, or fear, the abused children identified significantly more faces as "angry" rather than as "fearful" or "sad" – even when an image showed 60% fear and only 40% anger.

Images evoke emotions in almost all of us. Images calm us. Images can influence us – and advertising has long taken advantage of this. It deliberately manipulates our emotions. Surely you have also experienced reacting emotionally to images. Benetton consciously provokes with its advertising and aims for recognition. When viewing a Hieronymus Bosch painting, you may find it hard to escape a certain discomfort. Let the images affect you and observe what emotions they trigger in you.