Stroop and emotional Stroop interference in unaffected relatives of patients with schizophrenic and bipolar disorders: distinct markers of vulnerability?

Cold executive function processes and their hot analogs in schizotypy

OBJECTIVE

To examine cold (based on logical reasoning) versus hot (having emotional components) executive function processes in groups with high individual schizotypal traits.

METHOD

Two-hundred and forty-seven participants were administered the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire and were allocated into schizotypal (cognitive-perceptual, paranoid, negative, disorganized) or control groups according to pre-specified criteria. Participants were also administered a battery of tasks examining working memory, complex selective attention, response inhibition, decision-making and fluid intelligence and their affective counterparts. The outcome measures of each task were reduced to one composite variable thus formulating five cold and five hot cognitive domains. Between-group differences in the cognitive domains were examined with repeated measures analyses of covariance.

RESULTS

For working memory, the control and the cognitive-perceptual groups outperformed negative schizotypes, while for affective working memory controls outperformed the disorganized group. Controls also scored higher compared with the disorganized group in complex selective attention, while both the control and the cognitive-perceptual groups outperformed negative schizotypes in complex affective selective attention. Negative schizotypes also had striking difficulties in response inhibition, as they scored lower compared with all other groups. Despite the lack of differences in fluid intelligence, controls scored higher compared with all schizotypal groups (except from cognitive-perceptual schizotypes) in emotional intelligence; the latter group reported higher emotional intelligence compared with negative schizotypes.

CONCLUSION

Results indicate that there is no categorical association between the different schizotypal dimensions with solely cold or hot executive function processes and support impoverished emotional intelligence as a core feature of schizotypy.

Proactive and reactive cognitive control for emotional conflict in individuals with high schizotypy: An ERP study

OBJECTIVE

The present study aimed to examine how individuals with high schizotypy, a high risk group of schizophrenia patients, resolve emotional conflict in proactive and reactive control and the underlying neural mechanisms.

METHODS

Thirty-two individuals with high schizotypy and 30 matched individuals with low schizotypy completed an emotional face-word Stroop task with electroencephalographic data recorded. The proportion of incongruent trials was manipulated in the task to induce proactive control (mostly incongruent trials context, MI context) or reactive control (mostly congruent trials context, MC context). Two event-related potential (ERP) components (N170 and N2) were examined, which represent face processing and cognitive control processes, respectively.

RESULTS

In the MC context, significantly decreased N2 and N170 amplitudes were found in high schizotypy individuals compared with low schizotypy individuals, suggesting abnormal neural activity of reactive control in high schizotypy individuals. No significant differences were found between the two groups in the MI context.

CONCLUSIONS

These results provide initial evidence for dissociation of neural activity of proactive and reactive control on emotional conflict in individuals with high schizotypy.

SIGNIFICANCE

The current findings provide important insight into the emotional conflict resolution in the schizophrenia spectrum.

A comparison of cognitive performance in the Suffolk County cohort and their unaffected siblings

People diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychoses demonstrate impaired neuropsychological performance. Their unaffected siblings exhibit mild impairments relative to unrelated controls, suggesting genetic and shared environmental risk for psychosis account for some portion of cognitive impairments observed in cases. However, most sibling studies were conducted early in illness course. Studying cases and unaffected siblings later in life is valuable because diagnostic misclassification is common early in illness, possibly leading to spurious conclusions. This study compared neuropsychological performance of individuals with psychotic disorders (schizophrenia and other psychoses), their unaffected siblings, and controls. Assessments were conducted 20 years after case enrollment in the Suffolk County Mental Health Project, when siblings and controls were added to the protocol. Results showed individuals with schizophrenia and other psychoses performed worse than their matched siblings across domains. Relative to controls, siblings of participants with schizophrenia showed mild deficits in executive function and processing speed, while no significant differences were observed between siblings of those with other psychoses and controls. These findings suggest pre- and post-onset factors impact cognitive deficits in psychosis, but pre-onset factors are more salient in schizophrenia. Additionally, schizophrenia and other psychoses exist on a neurodevelopmental continuum, with schizophrenia being a more severe manifestation.

Cognitive Impairment Among Tunisian Bipolar Patients: a Case-Control Study

Studies exploring the cognitive performance of bipolar patients have mainly been conducted in Western countries. To our knowledge, no surveys have been reported to date in Tunisia. The present work aimed to evaluate the cognitive functions, in the three domains of memory, attention and executive functions, among a sample of Tunisian individuals with bipolar disorder, during the remission period, compared to healthy control subjects. We found that Cognitive functions in euthymic patients with bipolar disorder were significantly more impaired than in controls, apart from the working memory that did not show a significant difference between the two groups. Our findings confirm cognitive deficits associated with bipolar disorder, even at a distance from the symptomatic phases of the disease. Thus, these anomalies may be considered as a trait marker of the disease. A better understanding of cognitive decline certainly allows for better management of psychiatric pathologies, thus improving patients' social skills and quality of life.

Attentional biases to emotional scenes in schizophrenia: An eye-tracking study

Attentional biases to emotional information may play a key role in the onset and course of schizophrenia. The aim of this experiment was to examine the attentional processing of four emotional scenes in competition (happy, neutral, sad, threatening) in 53 patients with schizophrenia and 51 controls. The eye movements were recorded in a 20-seconds free-viewing task. The results were: (i) patients showed increased attention on threatening scenes, compared to controls, in terms of attentional engagement and maintenance; (ii) patients payed less attention to happy scenes than controls, in terms of attentional maintenance; (iii) whereas positive symptoms were associated with a late avoidance of sad scenes, negative symptoms were associated with heightened attention to threat. The findings suggest that a threat-related bias and a lack of sensitivity to positive information may represent an underlying psychological mechanism of schizophrenia. Importantly, schizophrenia symptoms modulated the attentional biases, which has aetiological and therapeutic implications.

A comparative meta-analysis of neurocognition in first-degree relatives of patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

Objective:

Cognitive impairment is a familial and heritable aspect of major psychoses and might be a shared vulnerability marker for schizophrenia and BP. However, it is not clear whether some aspects of cognitive deficits are uniquely associated with risk for specific diagnoses.

Methods:

A novel meta-analysis of cognitive functions in first-degree relatives of probands with bipolar disorder (BP-Rel) and schizophrenia (Sch-Rel) was conducted. Current meta-analysis included 20 studies and compared cognitive functions of 1341 Sch-Rel, 939 BP-Rel and 1427 healthy controls.

Results:

Sch-Rel was associated with cognitive deficits in all domains (d = 0.20–0.58) and BP-Rel underperformed healthy controls in processing speed, verbal fluency and speed based executive function tests (d = 0.33–0.41). Sch-Rel underperformed BP-Rel in general intellectual ability, working memory, verbal memory, planning, processing speed and fluency (d = 0.24–0.42).

Conclusions:

Inefficiency in processing information and impaired processing speed might be common vulnerability factors for major psychoses. On the other hand, low performance in accuracy based tasks and deficits in general intellectual ability, verbal learning, planning and working memory might be more specifically associated with risk for schizophrenia.

Frontal brain activity in individuals at risk for schizophrenic psychosis and bipolar disorder during the emotional Stroop task - an fNIRS study

OBJECTIVES

The emotional Stroop effect is defined as increased reaction times to emotional stimuli compared to neutral ones. It has been often reported in the literature, on both behavioral and neurophysiological level. The goal of this study was to investigate the frontal brain activation in individuals at risk for schizophrenic psychosis and bipolar disorder during an emotional Stroop task. We expected to observe decreased activation in the at-risk individuals compared to the healthy controls.

METHODS

Individuals at high risk for psychosis (HR), at ultra-high risk for psychosis (UHR), at risk for bipolar disorder (BIP) and healthy controls (HC) performed an emotional Stroop task, which included positively, negatively and neutrally valenced words. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to measure levels of oxygenated hemoglobin (O2Hb) representing brain activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal and frontotemporal cortex.

RESULTS

Results showed significantly decreased levels of O2Hb in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in the HR and UHR groups compared to the HC, indicating lower activity. Even though the decrease was independent from the valence of the words, it was the most visible for the negative ones. Moreover, significantly lower O2Hb levels in the frontotemporal cortex (FTC) were observed in all at risk groups compared to the HC.

CONCLUSIONS

Lower activity in the FTC in groups at risk for psychosis and bipolar disorder reflects unspecific dysfunctions. Decreased activity in the DLPFC in the HR and UHR groups indicates that hypofrontality can be found already in individuals at risk for schizophrenic psychosis.

Vulnerability to Psychosis, Ideas of Reference and Evaluation with an Implicit Test

BACKGROUND

Ideas of reference (IRs) are observed in the general population on the continuum of the psychotic phenotype (as a type of psychotic-like experiences, PLE). The instruments usually used to evaluate IRs show some problems: They depend on the cooperation of the participant, comprehension of items, social desirability, etc. Aims: The Testal emotional counting Stroop (TECS) was developed for the purpose of improving evaluation of individuals vulnerable to psychosis and its relationship with ideas of reference. The TECS (two versions) was applied as an implicit evaluation instrument for IRs and related processes for early identification of persons vulnerable to psychosis and to test the possible influence of emotional symptomatology.

METHOD

A total of 160 participants (67.5% women) from the general population were selected (Mean (M) = 24.12 years, standard deviation (SD) = 5.28), 48 vulnerable and 112 non-vulnerable.

RESULTS

Vulnerability to psychosis was related to greater latency in response to referential stimuli. Version 4 of the TECS showed a slight advantage in identifying more latency in response to referential stimuli among participants with vulnerability to psychosis (Cohen's d = 1.08). Emotional symptomatology (especially stress), and IQ (premorbid) mediated the relationship between vulnerability and IR response latency.

CONCLUSIONS

The application of the implicit Testal emotional counting Stroop test (TECS) is useful for evaluating processes related to vulnerability to psychosis, as demonstrated by the increased latency of response to referential stimuli.

Deficits in facial emotion recognition and implicit attitudes toward emotion among adolescents with high functioning autism spectrum disorder

OBJECTIVE

Impaired social interaction is one of the core characteristics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study was conducted to compare the facial emotion recognition (FER) abilities and emotional interference of adolescents with and without high-functioning ASD by performing the FER Task (FERT) using the faces of Taiwanese people and the Implicit Association Test (IAT), respectively.

METHODS

This study recruited 71 adolescents with high-functioning ASD who aged at 11 to 18 years old as the ASD group and 63 adolescents without ASD from the Taiwanese community as the non-ASD group. We investigated FER abilities by conducting the FERT on six types of emotional expression with a three-level intensity rating, and we performed the IAT for evaluating the strength of a person's automatic association with mental representations of emotions in memory.

RESULTS

Compared with the non-ASD group, the ASD group performed significantly worse on facial emotion differentiation and the ranking and rating of emotional intensity in the FERT. The ASD group had higher IAT scores than the non-ASD group.

CONCLUSION

The results suggest that adolescents with high-functioning ASD have subtle deficits in facial emotion processing and emotional interference.

Neurobiology of Risk for Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a chronic mental illness which follows a relapsing and remitting course and requires lifetime treatment. The lack of biological markers for BD is a major difficulty in clinical practice. Exploring multiple endophenotypes to fit in multivariate genetic models for BD is an important element in the process of finding tools to facilitate early diagnosis, early intervention, prevention of new episodes, and follow-up of treatment response in BD. Reviewing of studies on neuroimaging, neurocognition, and biochemical parameters in populations with high genetic risk for the illness can yield an integrative perspective on the neurobiology of risk for BD. The most up-to-date data reveals consistent deficits in executive function, response inhibition, verbal memory/learning, verbal fluency, and processing speed in risk groups for BD. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies report alterations in the activity of the inferior frontal gyrus, medial prefrontal cortex, and limbic areas, particularly in the amygdala in unaffected first-degree relatives (FDR) of BD compared to healthy controls. Risk groups for BD also present altered immune and neurochemical modulation. Despite inconsistencies, accumulating data reveals cognitive and imaging markers for risk and to a less extent resilience of BD. Findings on neural modulation markers are preliminary and require further studies. Although the knowledge on the neurobiology of risk for BD has been inadequate to provide benefits for clinical practice, further studies on structural and functional changes in the brain, neurocognitive functioning, and neurochemical modulation have a potential to reveal biomarkers for risk and resilience for BD. Multimodal, multicenter, population-based studies with large sample size allowing for homogeneous subgroup analyses will immensely contribute to the elucidation of biological markers for risk for BD in an integrative model.

Distribution of Response Time, Cortical, and Cardiac Correlates during Emotional Interference in Persons with Subclinical Psychotic Symptoms

A psychosis phenotype can be observed below the threshold of clinical detection. The study aimed to investigate whether subclinical psychotic symptoms are associated with deficits in controlling emotional interference, and whether cortical brain and cardiac correlates of these deficits can be detected using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). A data set derived from a community sample was obtained from the Zurich Program for Sustainable Development of Mental Health Services. 174 subjects (mean age 29.67 ± 6.41, 91 females) were assigned to four groups ranging from low to high levels of subclinical psychotic symptoms (derived from the Symptom Checklist-90-R). Emotional interference was assessed using the emotional Stroop task comprising neutral, positive, and negative conditions. Statistical distributional methods based on delta plots [behavioral response time (RT) data] and quantile analysis (fNIRS data) were applied to evaluate the emotional interference effects. Results showed that both interference effects and disorder-specific (i.e., group-specific) effects could be detected, based on behavioral RTs, cortical hemodynamic signals (brain correlates), and heart rate variability (cardiac correlates). Subjects with high compared to low subclinical psychotic symptoms revealed significantly reduced amplitudes in dorsolateral prefrontal cortices (interference effect, p < 0.001) and middle temporal gyrus (disorder-specific group effect, p < 0.001), supported by behavioral and heart rate results. The present findings indicate that distributional analyses methods can support the detection of emotional interference effects in the emotional Stroop. The results suggested that subjects with high subclinical psychosis exhibit enhanced emotional interference effects. Based on these observations, subclinical psychosis may therefore prove to represent a valid extension of the clinical psychosis phenotype.

Cognitive functioning in individuals at ultra-high risk for psychosis, first-degree relatives of patients with psychosis and patients with first-episode schizophrenia

OBJECTIVE

The aim of the present study was to investigate and compare cognitive functioning of first-degree relatives of people with schizophrenia who were also at ultra-high risk (UHR) for psychosis with patients with first-episode (FE) schizophrenia, first degree relatives of patients not fulfilling UHR criteria (FDR), and healthy control (HC) subjects.

METHOD

Forty subjects in each group were included, underwent a face-to-face interview and completed a neurocognitive test battery, including the Trail Making Test-A (TMT-A, psychomotor functions), Stroop Color Word Test (attention), Digit Symbol Coding Test (DST, processing speed and working memory) and Hopkins Verbal Leaning Test-Revised (HVLT-R, verbal memory).

RESULTS

Functioning in all the cognitive test domains displayed a gradual decrease from the HC, FDR, UHR to FE groups. After controlling for covariates, there were still significant differences in TMT-A (F(7160)=35.4, P<0.001), DST (F(7160)=38.9, P<0.001), Stroop Color Word Test (F(7160)=35.0, P<0.001), Stroop Word Test (F(7160)=36.2, P<0.001), Stroop Color Test (F(7160)=40.9, P<0.001) and HVLT-R (F(7160)=62.5, P<0.001) between the four groups, indicating that the cognitive functioning in the UHR group was intermediate between the FE and FDR groups, while the FDR group had poorer performance than the HC group, and the FE group had the poorest cognitive functioning across all four examined domains.

CONCLUSION

The results indicate that impairments in processing speed, attention, working memory and verbal memory exist in both UHR and FDR subjects. In order to clarify the associations between cognitive functioning and UHR and schizophrenia, longitudinal studies are warranted.

Schizotypy and specificity of negative emotions on an emotional Stroop paradigm in the general population

Attentional-interference using emotional Stroop tasks (ESTs) is greater among individuals in the general population with positive (versus negative) schizotypal traits; specifically in response to negatively (versus positively) valenced words, potentially capturing threat-sensitivity. Variability in attentional-interference as a function of subcategories of negatively valenced words (and in relation to schizotypal traits) remains underexplored in EST studies. We examined attentional-interference across negative word subcategories (fear/anger/sadness/disgust), and in relation to positive schizotypy, among non-clinical individuals in the general population reporting varying degrees of schizotypal traits. As hypothesized, performance differed across word subcategories, though the pattern varied from expectation. Attentional-interference was greater for fear and sadness compared to anger; and analogous for fear, disgust, and sadness. In the high schizotypy group, positive schizotypal traits were directly associated with attentional-interference to disgust. Attentional-interference was comparable between high- and low-positive schizotypy. Results suggest negative emotion subcategories may differentially reflect threat-sensitivity. Disgust-sensitivity may be particularly salient in (non-clinical) positive schizotypy. Findings have implications for understanding negative emotion specificity and variability in stimulus presentation modality when studying threat-related attentional-interference. Finally, disgust-related attentional-interference may serve as a cognitive correlate of (non-clinical) positive schizotypy. Expanding this research to prodromal populations will help explore disgust-related attentional-interference as a potential cognitive marker of positive symptoms.

The neurocognitive functioning in bipolar disorder: a systematic review of data

BACKGROUND

During the last decades, there have been many different opinions concerning the neurocognitive function in Bipolar disorder (BD). The aim of the current study was to perform a systematic review of the literature and to synthesize the data in a comprehensive picture of the neurocognitive dysfunction in BD.

METHODS

Papers were located with searches in PubMed/MEDLINE, through June 1st 2015. The review followed a modified version of the recommendations of the Preferred Items for Reporting of Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses statement.

RESULTS

The initial search returned 110,403 papers. After the deletion of duplicates, 11,771 papers remained for further evaluation. Eventually, 250 were included in the analysis.

CONCLUSION

The current review supports the presence of a neurocognitive deficit in BD, in almost all neurocognitive domains. This deficit is qualitative similar to that observed in schizophrenia but it is less severe. There are no differences between BD subtypes. Its origin is unclear. It seems it is an enduring component and represents a core primary characteristic of the illness, rather than being secondary to the mood state or medication. This core deficit is confounded (either increased or attenuated) by the disease phase, specific personal characteristics of the patients (age, gender, education, etc.), current symptomatology and its treatment (especially psychotic features) and long-term course and long-term exposure to medication, psychiatric and somatic comorbidity and alcohol and/or substance abuse.

Perception of emotion-related conflict in human communications: what are the effects of schizophrenia?

Our ability to make sense of emotional cues is of paramount importance for understanding state of mind and communicative intent. However, emotional cues often conflict with each other; this presents a significant challenge for people with schizophrenia. We conducted a theoretical review to determine the extent and types of impaired processing of emotion-related conflict in schizophrenia; we evaluated the relationship with medication and symptoms, and considered possible mediatory mechanisms. The literature established that people with schizophrenia demonstrated impaired function: (i) when passively exposed to emotion cues whilst performing an unrelated task, (ii) when selectively attending to one source of emotion cues whilst trying to ignore interference from another source, and (iii) when trying to resolve conflicting emotion cues and judge meta-communicative intent. These deficits showed associations with both negative and positive symptoms. There was limited evidence for antipsychotic medications attenuating impaired emotion perception when there are conflicting cues, with further direct research needed. Impaired attentional control and context processing may underlie some of the observed impairments. Neuroanatomical correlates are likely to involve interhemispheric transfer via the corpus callosum, limbic regions such as the amygdala, and possibly dorsolateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortex through their role in conflict processing.

Behavioral response inhibition in psychotic disorders: diagnostic specificity, familiality and relation to generalized cognitive deficit

Difficulty inhibiting context-inappropriate behavior is a common deficit in psychotic disorders. The diagnostic specificity of this impairment, its familiality, and its degree of independence from the generalized cognitive deficit associated with psychotic disorders remain to be clarified. Schizophrenia, schizoaffective and bipolar patients with history of psychosis (n=523), their available first-degree biological relatives (n=656), and healthy participants (n=223) from the multi-site B-SNIP study completed a manual Stop Signal task. A nonlinear mixed model was used to fit logistic curves to success rates on Stop trials as a function of parametrically varied Stop Signal Delay. While schizophrenia patients had greater generalized cognitive deficit than bipolar patients, their deficits were similar on the Stop Signal task. Further, only bipolar patients showed impaired inhibitory control relative to healthy individuals after controlling for generalized cognitive deficit. Deficits accounted for by the generalized deficit were seen in relatives of schizophrenia and schizoaffective patients, but not in relatives of bipolar patients. In clinically stable patients with psychotic bipolar disorder, impaired inhibitory behavioral control was a specific cognitive impairment, distinct from the generalized neuropsychological impairment associated with psychotic disorders. Thus, in bipolar disorder with psychosis, a deficit in inhibitory control may contribute to risk for impulsive behavior. Because the deficit was not familial in bipolar families and showed a lack of independence from the generalized cognitive deficit in schizophrenia spectrum disorders, it appears to be a trait related to illness processes rather than one tracking familial risk factors.

Cognitive deficits in clinical and familial high risk groups for psychosis are common as in first episode schizophrenia

The aim of this study is to compare the neurocognitive functions in individuals with clinical or genetic risk for psychosis, in patients with first-episode schizophrenia (FES) and in healthy controls. We compared cognitive functions of 52 individuals at ultra high risk (UHR) for psychosis, 53 patients with FES, their 30 healthy siblings (familial high risk group, FHR) and controls. FES group had worse neuropsychological performance than controls in all of the domains. UHR group had worse performance in verbal learning, attention, and working memory than controls. Additionally, individuals at UHR with familial risk had worse performance on executive functions than the control group. FES group had lower global composite score than UHR group, and worse sustained attention than FHR group. FHR group had worse performance on executive functions and attention than controls. We found no difference in cognitive performances of UHR and FHR groups. Cognitive deficits in UHR and FHR groups were largely similar to those with FES. These findings support that cognitive deficits may arise before the first episode of schizophrenia.

[Schizophrenia and/or bipolar disorder: the neurocognitive endophenotypes]

Although Kraepelinian dichotomous conceptualization of psychosis was historically beneficial, modern studies do not support the existence of a sub-typing of psychotic illnesses into schizophrenic and affective psychoses. Years of intensive investigation on the genetic bases of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder suggest that these disorders, rather than being wholly distinct disorders, share common genetic risks. However, one of the most serious difficulties for genetic research in these illnesses is their enormous phenotypic heterogeneity. A response to this problem is the use of neurocognitive functions as endophenotypes or intermediate phenotypes. A review of the literature suggests that in both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, neurocognitive functions are influenced by genetic factors and that there exists neuropsychological deficits in the nonaffected relatives of probands. However, it is unclear whether or not patterns of performance on neurocognitive tasks across probands as well as unaffected family members offer potential for identifying shared and illness-specific neurocognitive phenotypes for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Overlapping and unique neurocognitive endophenotypic signatures of the two psychoses are comprehensively described.

Pathogenetic and therapeutic perspectives on neurocognitive models in psychiatry: A synthesis of behavioral, brain imaging, and biological studies

Neurocognitive assessments are useful to determine the locus of insult as well as functional capacities of patients on treatment. In psychiatry, neurocognitive assessment is useful in the identification of brain lesions, evaluation of cognitive deterioration over time, and advancement of theories regarding the neuroanatomical localization of symptoms. Neurocognitive models provide a bridging link between brain pathology and phenomenology. They provide a useful framework to understand the pathogenesis of psychiatric disorders, bringing together isolated findings in behavioral, neuroimaging, and other neurobiological studies. This review will discuss neurocognitive model of three disorders - schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and obsessive compulsive disorder - by incorporating findings from neurocognitive, neuroimaging, and other biological studies.

Leipzig Affective Norms for German: a reliability study

To facilitate investigations of verbal emotional processing, we introduce the Leipzig Affective Norms for German (LANG), a list of 1,000 German nouns that have been rated for emotional valence, arousal, and concreteness. A critical factor regarding the quality of normative word data is their reliability. We therefore acquired ratings from a sample that was tested twice, with an interval of 2 years, to calculate test-retest reliability. Furthermore, we recruited a second sample to test reliability across independent samples. The results show (1) the typical quadratic relation of valence and arousal, replicating previous data, (2) very high test-retest reliability (>.95), and (3) high correlations between the two samples (>.85). Because the range of ratings was also very high, we provide a comprehensive set of words with reliable affective norms, which makes it possible to select highly controlled subsamples varying in emotional status. The database is available as a supplement for this article at http://brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.