Understanding Lightbulb Moments: Meaning-making in Visual Morphology From Comics and Emoji

We investigated the semantic processing of these “upfixes” like lightbulbs or gears that float above characters’ heads. We examined the congruity of face-upfix dyads presented sequentially with words describing their literal (“lightbulb”) or non-literal meanings (“inspiration”).

To examine if upfixes alone sponsor meanings, upfixes either matched or mismatched the facial expression (ex. lightbulb over an excited vs. sad face). Literal words always evoked faster response times for face-upfix dyads when presented before the images. When images appeared before words, participants responded faster to non-literal words for matching dyads than mismatching dyads.