Affective picture processing is modulated by emotion word type in masked priming paradigm: an event-related potential study

ABSTRACT

Although a large body of research demonstrates the role of language in emotion processing (e.g. emotional facial expressions), how emotion-laden words (e.g. poison, reward) and emotion-label words (e.g. fear, satisfaction) differently impact affective picture processing is not clear. Emotion-label words label affective states straightforwardly, whereas emotion-laden words engender emotion via reflection. The current study adopted the masked priming paradigm to examine how Chinese emotion-laden words and emotion-label words distinctively influence affective picture processing. Twenty Chinese speakers decided the valence of the pictures with their cortical responses recorded. Emotion-label words facilitated affective picture evaluation behaviourally. Moreover, pictures that were preceded by emotion-laden words generated larger electrophysiological activation than those preceded by emotion-label words. Combined behavioural and ERP evidence revealed that emotion word type modulated affective picture processing, suggesting different roles of emotion-laden and emotion-label words in how emotion is shaped by language.     

Emotion words affect eye fixations during reading

Emotion words are generally characterized as possessing high arousal and extreme valence and have typically been investigated in paradigms in which they are presented and measured as single words. This study examined whether a word's emotional qualities influenced the time spent viewing that word in the context of normal reading. Eye movements were monitored as participants read sentences containing an emotionally positive (e.g., lucky), negative (e.g., angry), or neutral (e.g., plain) word. Target word frequency (high or low) was additionally varied to help determine the temporal locus of emotion effects, with interactive results suggesting an early lexical locus of emotion processing. In general, measures of target fixation time demonstrated significant effects of emotion and frequency as well as an interaction. The interaction arose from differential effects with negative words that were dependent on word frequency. Fixation times on emotion words (positive or negative) were consistently faster than those on neutral words with one exception-high-frequency negative words were read no faster than their neutral counterparts. These effects emerged in the earliest eye movement measures, namely, first and single fixation duration, suggesting that emotionality, as defined by arousal and valence, modulates lexical processing. Possible mechanisms involved in processing emotion words are discussed, including automatic vigilance and desensitization, both of which imply a key role for word frequency. Finally, it is important that early lexical effects of emotion processing can be established within the ecologically valid context of fluent reading.     

The word concreteness effect occurs for positive,but not negative,emotion words in immediate serial recall

The present study examined the roles of word concreteness and word valence in the immediate serial recall task. Emotion words (e.g. happy) were used to investigate these effects. Participants completed study‐test trials with seven‐item study lists consisting of positive or negative words with either high or low concreteness (Experiments 1 and 2) and neutral (i.e. non‐emotion) words with either high or low concreteness (Experiment 2). For neutral words, the typical word concreteness effect (concrete words are better recalled than abstract words) was replicated. For emotion words, the effect occurred for positive words, but not for negative words. While the word concreteness effect was stronger for neutral words than for negative words, it was not different for the neutral words and the positive words. We conclude that both word valence and word concreteness simultaneously contribute to the item and order retention of emotion words and discuss how Hulme et al.'s (1997) item redintegration account can be modified to explain these findings.     

Incidental memory for colour word associates processed in colour naming and reading aloud tasks: is a blue ocean more memorable than a yellow one?

ABSTRACT

Congruency effects for colour word associates (e.g., ocean) have been reported in Stroop colour naming tasks. However, incidental memory for such words after word reading and colour naming tasks has not been examined. In the current study, participants incidentally recalled colour word associates (e.g., ocean) and neutral words (e.g., lawyer) immediately after naming their font colour (Experiment 1a) or reading them aloud (Experiment 1b). In both tasks, recall was better for congruent colour word associates (e.g., ocean appearing in blue) than incongruent colour word associates (e.g., ocean appearing in green) or neutral items (lawyer appearing in blue).

This outcome is consistent with the idea that co-activation of a semantic colour code and a lexical representation strengthens the episodic memory representation and makes it more accessible.     

The Development of Strategic Processing of Ambiguous Words: Riddles Versus Neutral Context

Children in Grades 4 and 6 read isolated target words following the auditory presentation of an ambiguous word (e.g., deck). The ambiguous word occurred as the last word in either a neutral sentence (e.g., “There is the deck”) or as the last word in a riddle (“Why couldn't anybody play poker on the ark? Because Noah sat on the deck). Related target words were consistent with either the dominant meaning (e.g., porch) or the subordinate meaning (cards) of the ambiguous word. In the neutral context, Grade 4 children showed equivalent facilitation for dominant and subordinate targets relative to unrelated target words; Grade 6 children showed facilitation only for the dominant targets. In the riddle context, both groups of children showed equivalent facilitation for the two types of related targets. The neutral context results supported the hypothesis that the two bases of context effects—automatic lexical access and selective access—develop at different rates (Simpson &; Foster, 1986). The results obtained from the riddles suggest that the selective process is strategic (Ceci, 1989).     

Independent effects of word concreteness and word valence on immediate serial recall

The present study examined the roles of word concreteness and word valence in the immediate serial recall task. Emotion words (e.g. happy) were used to investigate these effects. Participants completed study-test trials with 7-item study lists consisting of positive or negative words with either high or low concreteness (Experiments 1 and 2) and neutral (i.e. non-emotion) words with either high or low concreteness (Experiment 2). In serial recall performance, we replicated the typical item concreteness effect (concrete words are better recalled than abstract words) and obtained an item valence effect (positive/neutral words are better recalled than negative words). However, there was no concreteness × valence interaction. We conclude that both word valence and word concreteness independently contribute to the serial order retention of emotion words in the immediate serial recall task.     

The role of valence and frequency in the emotional Stroop task

People are generally slower to name the color of emotion-laden words than they are to name that of emotionally neutral words. However, an analysis of this emotional Stroop effect (Larsen, Mercer, & Balota, 2006) indicates that the emotion-laden words used are sometimes longer, have lower frequencies, and have smaller orthographic neighborhoods than the emotionally neutral words. This difference in word characteristics raises the possibility that the emotional Stroop effect is partly caused by lexical rather than by emotional aspects of the stimuli-a conclusion supported by the finding that reaction times to name the color of low-frequency words are longer than those for high-frequency words (Burt, 2002). To examine the relative contributions of valence and frequency in color naming, we had 64 participants complete an experiment in which each of these variables was manipulated in a 3 x 2 factorial design; length, orthographic neighborhood density, and arousal were balanced. The data indicate that valence and word frequency interact in contributing to the emotional Stroop effect.     

Building the perfect curse word: A psycholinguistic investigation of the form and meaning of taboo words

Taboo words represent a potent subset of natural language. It has been hypothesized that “tabooness” reflects an emergent property of negative valence and high physiological arousal of word referents. Many taboo words (e.g., dick, shit) are indeed consistent with this claim. Nevertheless, American English is also rife with negatively valenced, highly arousing words the usage of which is not socially condemned (e.g., cancer, abortion, welfare). We evaluated prediction of tabooness of single words and novel taboo compound words from a combination of phonological, lexical, and semantic variables (e.g., semantic category, word length). For single words, physiological arousal and emotional valence strongly predicted tabooness with additional moderating contributions from form (phonology) and meaning (semantic category). In Experiment 2, raters judged plausibility for combinations of common nouns with taboo words to form novel taboo compounds (e.g., shitgibbon). A mixture of formal (e.g., ratio of stop consonants, length) and semantic variables (e.g., ± receptacle, ± profession) predicted the quality of novel taboo compounding. Together, these studies provide complementary evidence for interactions between word form and meaning and an algorithmic prediction of tabooness in American English. We discuss applications for models of taboo word representation.

     

Stroop effects on redemption and semantic effects on confession: simultaneous automatic activation of embedded and carrier words

The present study was aimed at assessing whether focusing attention on a task-relevant part of a word prevents processing of its meaning. Participants performed a color-naming task on a prime word followed by lexical decision on a probe. Primes were words, which could contain an embedded color word (e.g., “redemption”) written in an incongruent color. Probes were either semantically related (e.g., “confession”) or unrelated (e.g., “production”) to the prime word. A Stroop effect emerged for color words appearing either in the initial or in the final position of the carrier word. A priming effect also emerged, with faster responses to probes semantically related to the prime. These results are evidence that focusing attention on part of a prime (i.e., the embedded color word) does not prevent the semantic processing of the entire word.     

Perception is a two-way junction: Feedback semantics in word recognition

Feedback semantics refers to whether a specific meaning can be represented by only one word (consistent) or by several words (inconsistent)—that is, whether a word has synonyms (e.g.,jail) or not (e.g.,milk). Models of word perception that allow feedback activation from semantics to orthography and phonology predict that performance should be worse for words that are feedback inconsistent (words with a synonym) than for words that are feedback consistent (words without a synonym). The present study showed that both naming and lexical decision responses are faster and more accurate to consistent than to inconsistent words. The results provide support for models that allow feedback activation between phonology, orthography, and semantics.     

Do readers mentally represent characters' emotional states?

Abstract

Subjects read stories that described concrete actions, such as a main character stealing money from a store where his best friend worked and later learning that his friend had been fired. Following each story, subjects read a target sentence that contained an emotion word that either matched the emotional state implied by the story (e.g. guilt) or mismatched that emotional state. In Experiment 1, target sentences were read more slowly when the mismatched emotion words were the perceived opposites of the emotional states implied by the stories (e.g. pride). In Experiment 2, target sentences were read more slowly when the mismatched emotion words shared the affective valence of the implied emotional state; therefore, readers must represent more than simply the affective valence of the emotional states. Instead of reading target sentences that contained matching versus mismatching emotion words, subjects in Experiment 3 simply pronounced matching versus mismatching emotion words. Mismatching emotion words were pronounced more slowly. These experiments suggest that readers form explicit, lifelike, mental representations of fictional characters' emotional states, and readers form these representations as a normal part of reading comprehension.     

Memory for emotional words in sentences: The importance of emotional contrast

Numerous researchers have demonstrated that emotional words are remembered better than neutral words. However, the effect has been attributed to factors other than emotion because it is somewhat fragile and influenced by variables such as the experimental designs employed. To investigate the role of emotion per se in memory for emotional words, negative-affect but low arousal emotional words were placed in sentence contexts that either activated high emotional meanings of the words (Shane died in his car last night.), or low emotional meanings of the words (Shane's old car died last night). The high-emotional contexts led to better memory than the low-emotional contexts, but only in mixed lists of emotional and neutral words. Additionally, the traditional emotional memory effect was also limited to mixed lists. The results are consistent with the idea that an emotional contrast is responsible for the emotional memory effect with low arousal emotional words.     

Differences between Chinese morphosyllabic and German alphabetic readers in the Stroop interference effect

The goal of our study was to localize the source of the stronger Stroop interference effect found in morphosyllabic readers as compared with alphabetic readers. Twenty-three Chinese and 24 German undergraduate students were tested in a Stroop paradigm with the following stimuli: color patches, colorneutral words (e.g.,friend printed in yellow), incongruent color-associated words (e.g.,blood printed in blue), and incongruent color words (e.g.,yellow printed in blue). Results revealed no differences in German and Chinese students’ response times to color patches. Chinese participants, however, showed longer color naming latencies for neutral words as well as for color words and color-related words. No differences between German and Chinese participants were found when print color latencies for neutral words were subtracted from print color latencies for color words and color-related words. This result does not support theories which suggest that for morphosyllabic readers there is a direct route from orthography to the semantics of a word. We rather argue, with reference to dual route models of reading, that access from print to phonology is faster for morphosyllabic than for alphabetic readers, and therefore interference caused by conflicting phonologies of color name and written word will be stronger in Chinese readers than in German readers.     

On the dissociation between reaction time and response duration as a function of lexical and sublexical reading: An examination of phonetic decoding and computational models

Neurobiological models of reading account for two ways in which orthography is converted to phonology: (1) familiar words, particularly those with exceptional spelling-sound mappings (e.g., shoe) access their whole-word lexical representations in the ventral visual stream, and (2) orthographically unfamiliar words, particularly those with regular spelling-sound mappings (i.e., pseudohomophones [PHs], which are orthographically novel but sound like real words; e.g., shue) are phonetically decoded via sublexical processing in the dorsal visual stream. The present study used a naming task in order to compare naming reaction time (RT) and response duration (RD) of exception and regular words to their PH counterparts. We replicated our earlier findings with words, and extended them to PH phonetic decoding by showing a similar effect on RT and RD of matched PHs. Given that the shorter RDs for exception words can be attributed to the benefit of whole-word processing in the orthographic word system, and the longer RTs for exception words to the conflict with phonetic decoding, our PH results demonstrate that phonetic decoding also involves top-down feedback from phonological lexical representations (e.g., activated by shue) to the orthographic representations of the corresponding correct word (e.g., shoe). Two computational models were tested for their ability to account for these effects: the DRC and the CDP+. The CDP+ fared best as it was capable of simulating both the regularity and stimulus type effect on RT for both word and PH identification, although not their over-additive interaction. Our results demonstrate that both lexical reading and phonetic decoding elicit a regularity dissociation between RT and RD that provides important constraints to all models of reading, and that phonetic decoding results in top-down feedback that bolsters the orthographic lexical reading process.     

Modulation of long-term memory by arousal in alexithymia: The role of interpretation

Moderate physiological or emotional arousal induced after learning modulates memory consolidation, helping to distinguish important memories from trivial ones. Yet, the contribution of subjective awareness or interpretation of arousal to this effect is uncertain. Alexithymia, which is an inability to describe or identify one’s emotional and arousal states even though physiological responses to arousal are intact, provides a tool to evaluate the role of arousal interpretation. Participants scoring high and low on alexithymia (N = 30 each) learned a list of 30 words, followed by immediate recall. Participants then saw either an arousing (oral surgery) or neutral video (tooth brushing). Memory was tested 24-h later. Physiological response to arousal was comparable between groups, but subjective response to arousal was impaired in high alexithymia. Yet, delayed word recognition was enhanced by arousal regardless of alexithymia status. Thus, subjective response to arousal, i.e., cognitive appraisal, was not necessary for memory modulation to occur.     

No attentional bias for pictoral stimuli in spider-fearful subjects

A number of experiments have shown that (spider) fearful subjects direct their attention to fear-relevant words, even when these words are irrelevant to the completion of a target task (e.g., color naming). The present study examined whether subjects with an intense fear of spiders also display such attentional bias for a fear-relevant pictoral stimulus. Female spider-fearful (n=13) and control subjects (n=13) saw neutral patterns (i.e., horizontal and vertical bars). One pattern served as target for a reaction time, while the other pattern served as nontarget. Targets and nontargets were accompanied by either fear-relevant or neutral pictoral material (i.e., a picture of a spider or a picture of a flower, respectively). The fear-relevant picture did not selectively delibate reaction time performance of spider-fearful subjects. Thus, no evidence was found for an attentional bias for fear-relevant pictoral material in subjects with an intense fear of spiders. Instead, fearful subjects exhibited a general inhibition of performance which became stronger over trials. This suggests that the fear-relevant picture induced a state of anxious arousal or defensive withdrawal that interfered with reaction time performance on both fear-relevant and neutral trials.     

The Heuristic Power Of Oppositionality In An Incidental-Memory Task: In Support Of The Construing Process

From a personal construct view, construing is a top-down process in which wider meanings predicate narrower, targeted meanings. Predicate contexts are invariably oppositional, as Kelly's (1955) theory reflects. Two memory experiments using college subjects are presented. Subjects were asked to focus on a series of 30 target words to determine if they were similar in meaning to a predicating word (e.g., friendly). Ten of these target words were relevant (e.g., congenial), 10 were opposite (e.g., impolite), and 10 were irrelevant (e.g., abstract) in meaning to the predicating word. Subjects were then (unexpectedly) asked to recall as many words as possible. In line with experimental instructions, the majority of these recalled words were relevant to the predicating word. However, as predicted, in both experiments significantly more opposite than irrelevant words were recalled (p < .001). The results are in support of a personal construct view of human cognition.     

Emotional time distortions: the fundamental role of arousal

An emotion-based lengthening effect on the perception of durations of emotional pictures has been assumed to result from an arousal-based mechanism, involving the activation of an internal clock system. The aim of this study was to systematically examine the arousal effect on time perception when different discrete emotions were considered. The participants were asked to verbally estimate the duration of emotional pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). The pictures varied either in arousal level, i.e., high/low-arousal, for the same discrete emotion (disgust or sadness) or in the depicted emotion, e.g., disgust/fear for pictures matched for arousal (high-arousal). The results systematically revealed a lengthening effect on the perception of the duration of the emotional compared to the neutral pictures and indicated that the magnitude of this effect increased with arousal level. Nevertheless, variations in time perception were observed for one and the same arousal level, with the duration of disgust-inducing pictures (e.g., body mutilation) being judged longer than that of fear-inducing pictures (e.g., snake). These results suggest that arousal is a fundamental mechanism mediating the effect of emotion on time perception. However, the effect cannot be reduced to arousal, since the impact of the content of pictures also plays a critical role.     

Emotional time distortions: The fundamental role of arousal

An emotion-based lengthening effect on the perception of durations of emotional pictures has been assumed to result from an arousal-based mechanism, involving the activation of an internal clock system. The aim of this study was to systematically examine the arousal effect on time perception when different discrete emotions were considered. The participants were asked to verbally estimate the duration of emotional pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). The pictures varied either in arousal level, i.e., high/low-arousal, for the same discrete emotion (disgust or sadness) or in the depicted emotion, e.g., disgust/fear for pictures matched for arousal (high-arousal). The results systematically revealed a lengthening effect on the perception of the duration of the emotional compared to the neutral pictures and indicated that the magnitude of this effect increased with arousal level. Nevertheless, variations in time perception were observed for one and the same arousal level, with the duration of disgust-inducing pictures (e.g., body mutilation) being judged longer than that of fear-inducing pictures (e.g., snake). These results suggest that arousal is a fundamental mechanism mediating the effect of emotion on time perception. However, the effect cannot be reduced to arousal, since the impact of the content of pictures also plays a critical role.     

Automatic vigilance for negative words in lexical decision and naming: comment on Larsen, Mercer, and Balota (2006)

An automatic vigilance hypothesis states that humans preferentially attend to negative stimuli, and this attention to negative valence disrupts the processing of other stimulus properties. Thus, negative words typically elicit slower color naming, word naming, and lexical decisions than neutral or positive words. Larsen, Mercer, and Balota analyzed the stimuli from 32 published studies, and they found that word valence was confounded with several lexical factors known to affect word recognition. Indeed, with these lexical factors covaried out, Larsen et al. found no evidence of automatic vigilance. The authors report a more sensitive analysis of 1011 words. Results revealed a small but reliable valence effect, such that negative words (e.g., "shark") elicit slower lexical decisions and naming than positive words (e.g., "beach"). Moreover, the relation between valence and recognition was categorical rather than linear; the extremity of a word's valence did not affect its recognition. This valence effect was not attributable to word length, frequency, orthographic neighborhood size, contextual diversity, first phoneme, or arousal. Thus, the present analysis provides the most powerful demonstration of automatic vigilance to date.