Emotional Development in People with High Capacities: Induction of Emotions through Pictorial Abstraction

: The goal of this work was to help the researcher that studies emotions in people with high capacities (HCs) to understand and intervene in the socio-emotional aspects of this group, considering the features of their proﬁle that present a certain speciﬁcity. The International A ﬀ ective Picture System (IAPS) developed by Lang, and based on the dimensional theory of emotions, was applied using abstract works by Kandinsky and Mondrian as emotional stimuli. The study was conducted with university students not classiﬁed as HC, to represent the normative group and enable the establishment of comparisons, to verify the existence of social-emotional mismatches in the individuals considered HC. The results indicate that the stimuli used elicit emotional states with valence and medium-high arousal that are free of connotations derived from ﬁgurative representation and correspond only to the sensory properties of the stimulus (colour, shape, etc.), which facilitate the study of traits such as emotional intensity and sensitivity.


Introduction
In 1991, the Columbus Group, chaired by Silverman, defined high abilities (HA) as the result of an asynchronous development in which advanced cognitive capacity and hyper-emotional intensity combine to give rise to personal experiences and perceptions of the world that are qualitatively different from those of the normative group to which the person belongs. According to this definition, to achieve optimal development that maximizes the qualities of people with HA, aspects of cognitive development and especially emotional development must be taken care of in the school environment as well as in the family. Eren et al. [1][2][3] suggested that gifted children are at risk with respect to mental health. Therefore, to become biopsychosocially healthy adults, identifying this status at an early age is important for the future of gifted children, so that they can receive appropriate education, support and counselling for emotional needs, and for parents and teachers to be fully informed. Thirty years later, emotion is still a determining element in the development of high capacities (HCs) people.
Asynchronous development consists of a time lag that, in the case of HC individuals, occurs between cognitive skills (which are at an advanced stage of development) and motor and social-emotional skills (which are usually at an earlier stage of development). Terrassier [4] defined the term asynchrony syndrome to explain this disparity by establishing two types of asynchrony: internal (of the subject with themselves) and external or social (established in relation to the environment). Internal asynchrony refers to aspects of intellectual, psychomotor, linguistic, and affective-emotional development. External asynchrony corresponds to the imbalance between the person and the environment (school, family, or both), which is due to the received stimuli not satisfying the perceived needs. This gap in development (asynchrony) presented by HC people is defined as a discordance determinate emotional responses. Dominance, on the other hand, is not considered in the affective space, because recent studies have not shown consistent effects [33].
Emotions are defined as multidimensional phenomena that include, in an explicit and interrelated manner, three manifestations of the stimulus that triggers them: cognitive processes, physiological changes, and the accompanying behavior [1]. Most authors agree that emotion is a multidimensional phenomenon that refers to a triggering stimulus and a triple response system involving thought, the psychophysiological state of the organism, and expressive reaction [30].
Previous works [34,35] have evaluated the objective emotional response by measuring the skin conductance responses (SCRs) to the same Kandinsky and Mondrian paintings used in this work. The results are similar to those obtained in Gatti, Calzolari, Maggioni, Obrist, 2018 [36], and indicate that viewing the paintings under study produces alterations in the conductance of the skin, i.e., an emotion is produced, which allows us to state that the stimuli studied elicited emotions. As the selected paintings elicited emotions, in this study, we analyzed the subjective characteristics of the emotional response to Kandinsky and Mondrian painting using the self-assessment manikin (SAM) [20] and the IAPS methodology, since this type of stimulus evokes emotions that strictly depend on the sensory qualities (color, shape, and texture) of the stimuli, and not on their representational character.
As such, the aim of this work was essentially to offer the researcher a set of emotional stimuli, as proposed by Lang et al. [27], which allow the precise selection of the stimuli according to their position in the affective space, defined by the dimensions of valence, activation, and dominance.

Design
This was a quasi-experimental design without the randomization of subjects.

Participants
A total of 92 people participated, all of whom were master's and/or PhD university students. Half of them belonged to the Department of History of Art, and the other half to different departments of the National University of Distance Education (UNED, Madrid, Spain). The sample was obtained by means of snowball sampling. The sample size was set to guarantee a power in the statistical analysis of 0.80 and an effect size of 0.30. Five were eliminated due to technical problems in the development of the session. The average age of the participants was 26.2 years, with a standard deviation of 7.7 years (maximum 54 and minimum 18 years); 43.75% were men and 56.5% were women.

Stimuli
A total of 28 slides, corresponding to 12 works by Kandinsky and 12 by Mondrian, and 4 that constituted the test stimuli (Appendix A lists the images used in the research and Appendix B shows 4 paintings by each author used as examples). Two criteria were considered for the selection. The first was the public availability of the images, for which the website Wikiart.org was used, whose copyright policy is governed by European law. From the works in the public domain on the aforementioned website, a wide range of works were selected, the 28 works used in the research were chosen, whose relevance was assessed by prestigious experts (UNED art professors and staff from private galleries), on the basis of both knowledge and representativeness of each author's work. Four training test stimuli were selected because their valence and arousal values were known from the work of Campos-Bueno et al. [37], which allowed us to assess the functioning of our stimulus presentation design. These stimuli were: The Scream, Edvard Munch 1893; Lena in interior; Theo van Doesburg, 1917; Full Fathom Five, Pollock-Triond, Vassarely, 1973.

Test
SAM is a standardized test that assesses the three dimensions: valence, arousal, and dominance. It is a pictographic measure, usually used in pencil and paper or computer format. The test consists of three series of humanoid figures, each representing one of the dimensions of the emotion and graduated in terms of intensity. The participant selects the figure whose numerical rating coincides with their personal rating.

Procedure
The sample was selected using snowball sampling, considering the proportionality between women and men. All participants evaluated each of the paintings that composed the series of stimuli. The dependent variable was the affective evaluations obtained through the SAM in the three dimensions: arousal, valence, and control.
All the recommendations for the procedure provided by Lang et al. [27] were followed, concerning: the exposure time of the stimuli (6 s,) the randomization of the presentation of both the tables and the scales that evaluate each dimension, luminosity, noise, etc. For the projection of the slides, a screen was used (LG Model: 28MT47T-PZ). The screen was connected to a laptop Lenovo IdeaPad Z500 (Intel Core i7-3612QM, 8 GB de RAM, Disco HDD de 1 TB, NVIDIA GeForce GT635M 2 GB) that controlled all the parameters for the definition of the stimulus series. The sessions were developed in a laboratory of the Faculty of Psychology of UNED, maintaining constant conditions of luminosity, noise, and distance between the screen and the experimental subject. At the beginning of the section, the participant was welcomed, thanked for their participation, and provided a brief explanation of the experience, and was asked to sign an informed consent form.

Presentation of the Stimuli
The presentation was provided using E-PRIME (Psychology Software Tools, Inc. Pittsburgh, PA, USA) program for the design of computerized experiments, data collection, and analysis.
Each experimental session consisted of two phases. In the first one, the instructions were presented, following the scheme presented in Figure 1.

Test
SAM is a standardized test that assesses the three dimensions: valence, arousal, and dominance. It is a pictographic measure, usually used in pencil and paper or computer format. The test consists of three series of humanoid figures, each representing one of the dimensions of the emotion and graduated in terms of intensity. The participant selects the figure whose numerical rating coincides with their personal rating.

Procedure
The sample was selected using snowball sampling, considering the proportionality between women and men. All participants evaluated each of the paintings that composed the series of stimuli. The dependent variable was the affective evaluations obtained through the SAM in the three dimensions: arousal, valence, and control.
All the recommendations for the procedure provided by Lang et al. [27] were followed, concerning: the exposure time of the stimuli (6 s,) the randomization of the presentation of both the tables and the scales that evaluate each dimension, luminosity, noise, etc. For the projection of the slides, a screen was used (LG Model: 28MT47T-PZ). The screen was connected to a laptop Lenovo IdeaPad Z500 (Intel Core i7-3612QM, 8 GB de RAM, Disco HDD de 1 TB, NVIDIA GeForce GT635M 2 GB) that controlled all the parameters for the definition of the stimulus series. The sessions were developed in a laboratory of the Faculty of Psychology of UNED, maintaining constant conditions of luminosity, noise, and distance between the screen and the experimental subject. At the beginning of the section, the participant was welcomed, thanked for their participation, and provided a brief explanation of the experience, and was asked to sign an informed consent form.

Presentation of the Stimuli
The presentation was provided using E-PRIME (Psychology Software Tools, Inc. Pittsburgh, PA, USA) program for the design of computerized experiments, data collection, and analysis.
Each experimental session consisted of two phases. In the first one, the instructions were presented, following the scheme presented in Figure 1.  In the second phase, 4 preliminary training tests were conducted, and then the series of stimuli to be evaluated began. The scheme of the test development is shown in Figure 2. A first screen in black for 5 s, followed a red cross appeared in the center upon which the participant fixated for 0.5 s, and the stimulus to be evaluated was displayed and remained visible for 6 s, followed by the appearance of the random sequence of responses to the SAM. Clicking on the response turned the screen black and the process began for the second stimulus, and so on, until stimulus 24.  In the second phase, 4 preliminary training tests were conducted, and then the series of stimuli to be evaluated began. The scheme of the test development is shown in Figure 2. A first screen in black for 5 s, followed a red cross appeared in the center upon which the participant fixated for 0.5 s, and the stimulus to be evaluated was displayed and remained visible for 6 s, followed by the appearance of the random sequence of responses to the SAM. Clicking on the response turned the screen black and the process began for the second stimulus, and so on, until stimulus 24.
The responses to the SAM and the corresponding reaction times were recorded in a file that also contained age, sex, manual dominance, session, participant number, and random sequence corresponding to the presentation of stimuli and responses.
In the second phase, 4 preliminary training tests were conducted, and then the series of stimuli to be evaluated began. The scheme of the test development is shown in Figure 2. A first screen in black for 5 s, followed a red cross appeared in the center upon which the participant fixated for 0.5 s, and the stimulus to be evaluated was displayed and remained visible for 6 s, followed by the appearance of the random sequence of responses to the SAM. Clicking on the response turned the screen black and the process began for the second stimulus, and so on, until stimulus 24.

Results
The reliability of the SAM for the work sample was analyzed to determine if the change in the type of reagents affected psychometric properties. Cronbach's α for the total test was 0.74, the test as a whole 0.76 for the arousal, 0.68 for the valence, and 0.56 for dominance within the range of usual values.

Discussion
The main objective of this work was to present the normative values of a set of stimuli formed by the works by Kandinsky and Mondrian, to offer the researcher a set of reagents that are especially useful for working with HC people (especially children and young people) given the special relevance of aesthetic sensitivity as a factor that encompasses the sense of justice, altruism and idealism, sense of humor, emotional intensity, perfectionism, etc., which are especially present in this group [20].
The results indicated that all the selected stimuli present medium-high values in the dimensions of arousal and valence affective, indicating that they are capable of eliciting emotional responses. These states increase the depth of information processing resulting in over-stimulation, which affects the attention, stress, high emotional sensitivity, empathy, and emotional sensitivity, features that define the profile of HA people [6][7][8][9][10].
Using the set of proposed stimuli can improve our understanding of whether a specific socialemotional HC profile exists in comparison with that of ordinary people. The calibrated stimuli induce a neutral emotional state in the sense that the emotion induced does not correspond to any of the socalled primary emotions (joy, sadness, anger, aversion, fear, and surprise).
Focusing on the behavior of the stimuli calibrated ( Figure 3) and compared with the boomerang shape presented by the stimulus distributions of the IAPS, the set analyzed in this work lacks of

Discussion
The main objective of this work was to present the normative values of a set of stimuli formed by the works by Kandinsky and Mondrian, to offer the researcher a set of reagents that are especially useful for working with HC people (especially children and young people) given the special relevance of aesthetic sensitivity as a factor that encompasses the sense of justice, altruism and idealism, sense of humor, emotional intensity, perfectionism, etc., which are especially present in this group [20].
The results indicated that all the selected stimuli present medium-high values in the dimensions of arousal and valence affective, indicating that they are capable of eliciting emotional responses. These states increase the depth of information processing resulting in over-stimulation, which affects the attention, stress, high emotional sensitivity, empathy, and emotional sensitivity, features that define the profile of HA people [6][7][8][9][10].
Using the set of proposed stimuli can improve our understanding of whether a specific social-emotional HC profile exists in comparison with that of ordinary people. The calibrated stimuli induce a neutral emotional state in the sense that the emotion induced does not correspond to any of the so-called primary emotions (joy, sadness, anger, aversion, fear, and surprise).
Focusing on the behavior of the stimuli calibrated ( Figure 3) and compared with the boomerang shape presented by the stimulus distributions of the IAPS, the set analyzed in this work lacks of neutral stimuli, which are responsible for the boomerang form, due to use of each author's work representativeness as a criterion for the selection. However, the images evaluated with the highest levels of liking and disliking also tended to obtain the highest scores in the activation dimension (Figure 3), agreeing with Bradley, M y Lang, P.J. [38,39].
One of the important applications derived from this work, once the validated methodological application was proposed, is the possibility to create a bank of calibrated pictorial works as affective stimuli, similar to IAPS, that can be used in research and intervention for both normative and HC groups.
Funding: This research received no external funding.