Why do certain shapes convey emotion?

THAT'S THE WHY: HAVE YOU ever noticed how easy it is to spot the "baddie" in cartoons and pantos?

There’s probably some giveaway ominous music, a swirling black cape and that evil laugh. And new findings from the University of Warwick suggest that we might associate certain triangular shapes on the villain’s face with negativity too.

The study, published in the journal Emotion, asked volunteers to look at various schematic faces (similar to “emoticon” symbols) and geometric shapes on a computer. And what they found was that a downward pointing triangle seems to convey negative emotion.

“We know from previous studies that simple geometric shapes are effective at capturing or guiding attention, particularly if these shapes carry the features present within negative or positive faces,” said researcher Derrick Watson in a release. “Our study shows that downward pointing triangles in particular convey negative emotions and we can pick up on them quickly and perceive them as a threat.”

And while the experiment itself didn’t ask participants to look at “baddie” faces (in fact they left eyebrows out of the schematic faces to avoid interference with the triangular shapes being shown too), the press release makes the connection.

“If we look at cartoon characters, the classic baddie will often be drawn with the evil eyebrows that come to a downward point in the middle,” said researcher Elisabeth Blagrove. “This could go some way to explain why we associate the downward pointing triangle with negative faces. These shapes correspond with our own facial features and we are unconsciously making that link.”