To give a sense of how submodalities code emotional information, consider the following study.
In research by Emily Balcetis, an assistant professor in NYU’s Department of Psychology, and David Dunning, a Cornell professor of psychology, volunteers tossed a beanbag towards a gift card (worth either $25 or $0) on the floor.
They were told that if the beanbag landed on the card, they would be given the card. Interestingly, the volunteers threw the beanbag much farther if the gift card was worth $0 than if it was worth $25 — that is, they underthrew the beanbag when attempting to win a $25 gift card, because they viewed that gift card as being closer to them.
These findings indicate that when we want something, we actually view it as being physically close to us. Moving an object, in our imagination, closer to us makes us see it as more significant.
This is then the basis for several NLP processes such as the “visual swish”, in which an image of a desired future self is moved quickly closer and becomes brighter.