Effects of Valence on Hemispheric Specialization for Emotion Word Processing

Psycho-physio-neurological correlates of qualitative attention, emotion and flow experiences in a close-to-real-life extreme sports situation: low- and high-altitude slackline walking

It has been indicated that extreme sport activities result in a highly rewarding experience, despite also providing fear, stress and anxiety. Studies have related this experience to the concept of flow, a positive feeling that individuals undergo when they are completely immersed in an activity. However, little is known about the exact nature of these experiences, and, there are still no empirical results to characterize the brain dynamics during extreme sport practice. This work aimed at investigating changes in psychological responses while recording physiological (heart rate-HR, and breathing rate-BR) and neural (electroencephalographic-EEG) data of eight volunteers, during outdoors slackline walking in a mountainous environment at two different altitude conditions (1 m-low-walk- and 45 m-high-walk-from the ground). Low-walk showed a higher score on flow scale, while high-walk displayed a higher score in the negative affect aspects, which together point to some level of flow restriction during high-walk. The order of task performance was shown to be relevant for the physiological and neural variables. The brain behavior during flow, mainly considering attention networks, displayed the stimulus-driven ventral attention network-VAN, regionally prevailing (mainly at the frontal lobe), over the goal-directed dorsal attention network-DAN. Therefore, we suggest an interpretation of flow experiences as an opened attention to more changing details in the surroundings, i.e., configured as a 'task-constantly-opened-to-subtle-information experience', rather than a 'task-focused experience'.

Differential roles of brain oscillations in numerical processing: evidence from resting-state EEG and mental number line

Recent works point to the importance of emotions in special-numerical associations. There remains a notable gap in understanding the electrophysiological underpinnings of such associations. Exploring resting-state (rs) EEG, particularly in frontal regions, could elucidate emotional aspects, while other EEG measures might offer insights into the cognitive dimensions correlating with behavioral performance. The present work investigated the relationship between rs-EEG measures (emotional and cognitive traits) and performance in the mental number line (MNL). EEG activity in theta (3-7 Hz), alpha (8-12 Hz, further subdivided into low-alpha and high-alpha), sensorimotor rhythm (SMR, 13-15 Hz), beta (16-25 Hz), and high-beta/gamma (28-40 Hz) bands was assessed. 76 university students participated in the study, undergoing EEG recordings at rest before engaging in a computerized number-to-position (CNP) task. Analysis revealed significant associations between frontal asymmetry, specific EEG frequencies, and MNL performance metrics (i.e., mean direction bias, mean absolute error, and mean reaction time). Notably, theta and beta asymmetries correlated with direction bias, while alpha peak frequency (APF) and beta activity related to absolute errors in numerical estimation. Moreover, the study identified significant correlations between relative amplitude indices (i.e., theta/beta ratio, theta/SMR ratio) and both absolute errors and reaction times (RTs). Our findings offer novel insights into the emotional and cognitive aspects of EEG patterns and their links to MNL performance.

Neural correlates of emotion-label vs. emotion-laden word processing in late bilinguals: evidence from an ERP study

The brain processes underlying the distinction between emotion-label words (e.g. happy, sad) and emotion-laden words (e.g. successful, failed) remain inconclusive in bilingualism research. The present study aims to directly compare the processing of these two types of emotion words in both the first language (L1) and second language (L2) by recording event-related potentials (ERP) from late Chinese-English bilinguals during a lexical decision task. The results revealed that in the early word processing stages, the N170 emotion effect emerged only for L1 negative emotion-laden words and L2 negative emotion-label words. In addition, larger early posterior negativity (EPN) was elicited by emotion-laden words than emotion-label words in both L1 and L2. In the later processing stages, the N400 emotion effect was evident for L1 emotion words, excluding positive emotion-laden words, while it was absent in L2. Notably, L1 emotion words elicited enhanced N400 and attenuated late positive complex (LPC) compared to those in L2. Taken together, these findings confirmed the engagement of emotion, and highlighted the modulation of emotion word type and valence on word processing in both early and late processing stages. Different neural mechanisms between L1 and L2 in processing written emotion words were elucidated.

What distinguishes emotion-label words from emotion-laden words? The characterization of affective meaning from a multi-componential conception of emotions

Past research that distinguishes between affective and neutral words has predominantly relied on two-dimensional models of emotion focused on valence and arousal. However, these two dimensions cannot differentiate between emotion-label words (e.g., fear) and emotion-laden words (e.g., death). In the current study, we aimed to determine the unique affective characteristics that differentiate emotion-label, emotion-laden, and neutral words. Therefore, apart from valence and arousal, we considered different affective features of multi-componential models of emotion: action, assessment, expression, feeling, and interoception. The study materials included 800 Spanish words (104 emotion-label words, 340 emotion-laden words, and 356 neutral words). To examine the differences between each word type, we carried out a Principal Component Analysis and a Random Forest Classifier technique. Our results indicate that these words are characterized more precisely when the two-dimensional approach is combined with multi-componential models. Specifically, our analyses revealed that feeling, interoception and valence are key features in accurately differentiating between emotion-label, emotion-laden, and neutral words.

Task Effects in Irony Comprehension in English as a Foreign Language

Irony comprehension involves understanding implicit attitudes communicated on top of the explicit, literal meaning. Because of the double-binding stemming from the explicit-implicit incongruity, irony is assumed to be cognitively taxing when communicated in the native language (NL), and even more so in the foreign language (FL). Prior studies investigating irony comprehension in the FL indicated that irony may be processed with similar speed and accuracy in the foreign and the native language, and that irony comprehension efficiency in the former might be lower. Building on these findings, this study investigates if the tasks participants perform when reading irony in their FL affect the efficiency of irony comprehension. We invited 150 advanced Polish users of English to take part in one of two tasks. Participants were asked to read 3- to 5-sentence-long-scenarios, ending in literal (Literal Praise, Literal Criticism) or ironic comments (Ironic Praise, Ironic Criticism) and to either (1) make true/false judgments (T/F task; N = 83), or to (2) judge the emotional value in emotive decision task (EDT; N = 67). A full spectrum of verbal irony employed to communicate ironic praise and criticism, and their literal equivalents: literal praise and literal criticism, was tested. A three-way mixed ANOVA with 2× Valence (Praise, Criticism), 2× Mode (Literal, Ironic) as within-subject repeated-measures, and 2× Task (True/False, Emotive Decision) as a between-subject independent measure, revealed that efficiency of irony comprehension was differently modified by the two tasks. Therefore, we argue that irony comprehension in English as a foreign language is task-constrained.

Roles of Phonation Types and Decoders' Gender in Recognizing Mandarin Emotional Speech

PURPOSE

Capturing phonation types such as breathy, modal, and pressed voices precisely can facilitate the recognition of human emotions. However, little is known about how exactly phonation types and decoders' gender influence the perception of emotional speech. Based on the modified Brunswikian lens model, this article aims to examine the roles of phonation types and decoders' gender in Mandarin emotional speech recognition by virtue of articulatory speech synthesis.

METHOD

Fifty-five participants (28 male and 27 female) completed a recognition task of Mandarin emotional speech, with 200 stimuli representing five emotional categories (happiness, anger, fear, sadness, and neutrality) and five types (original, copied, breathy, modal, and pressed). Repeated-measures analyses of variance were performed to analyze recognition accuracy and confusion data.

RESULTS

For male and female decoders, the recognition accuracy of anger from pressed stimuli and fear from breathy stimuli was high; across all phonation-type stimuli, the recognition accuracy of sadness was also high, but that of happiness was low. The confusion data revealed that in recognizing fear from all phonation-type stimuli, female decoders chose fear responses more frequently and neutral responses less frequently than male decoders. In recognizing neutrality from breathy stimuli, female decoders significantly reduced their choice of neutral responses and misidentified neutrality as anger, while male decoders mistook neutrality from pressed stimuli for anger.

CONCLUSIONS

This study revealed that, in Mandarin, phonation types play crucial roles in recognizing anger, fear, and neutrality, while the recognition of sadness and happiness seems not to depend heavily on phonation types. Moreover, the decoders' gender affects their recognition of neutrality and fear. These findings support the modified Brunswikian lens model and have significance for diagnosis and intervention among clinical populations with hearing impairment or gender-related psychiatric disorders.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.24302221.

The embodiment of emotion-label words and emotion-laden words: Evidence from late Chinese-English bilinguals

Although increasing studies have confirmed the distinction between emotion-label words (words directly label emotional states) and emotion-laden words (words evoke emotions through connotations), the existing evidence is inconclusive, and their embodiment is unknown. In the current study, the emotional categorization task was adopted to investigate whether these two types of emotion words are embodied by directly comparing how they are processed in individuals' native language (L1) and the second language (L2) among late Chinese-English bilinguals. The results revealed that apart from L2 negative emotion-laden words, both types of emotion words in L1 and L2 produced significant emotion effects, with faster response times and/or higher accuracy rates. In addition, processing facilitation for emotion-label words over emotion-laden words was observed irrespective of language operation; a significant three-way interaction between the language, valence and emotion word type was noted. Taken together, this study suggested that the embodiment of emotion words is modulated by the emotion word type, and L2 negative emotion-laden words tend to be affectively disembodied. The disassociation between emotion-label and emotion-laden words is confirmed in both L1 and L2 and therefore, future emotion word research should take the emotion word type into account.

Your words went straight to my heart: the role of emotional prototypicality in the recognition of emotion-label words

Emotional words differ in how they acquire their emotional charge. There is a relevant distinction between emotion-label words (those that directly name an emotion, e.g., "joy" or "sadness") and emotion-laden words (those that do not name an emotion, but can provoke it, e.g., "party" or "death"). In this work, we focused on emotion-label words. These words vary in their emotional prototypicality, which indicates the extent to which the word refers to an emotion. We conducted two lexical decision experiments to examine the role played by emotional prototypicality in the recognition of emotion-label words. The results showed that emotional prototypicality has a facilitative effect in word recognition. Emotional prototypicality would ease conceptual access, thus facilitating the retrieval of emotional content during word recognition. In addition to the theoretical implications, the evidence gathered in this study also highlights the need to consider emotional prototypicality in the selection of emotion-label words in future studies.

Evidence for dynamic attentional bias toward positive emotion-laden words: A behavioral and electrophysiological study

There has been no consensus on the neural dissociation between emotion-label and emotion-laden words, which remains one of the major concerns in affective neurolinguistics. The current study adopted dot-probe tasks to investigate the valence effect on attentional bias toward Chinese emotion-label and emotion-laden words. Behavioral data showed that emotional word type and valence interacted in attentional bias scores with an attentional bias toward positive emotion-laden words rather than positive emotion-label words and that this bias was derived from the disengagement difficulty in positive emotion-laden words. In addition, an attentional bias toward negative emotion-label words relative to positive emotion-label words was observed. The event-related potential (ERP) data demonstrated an interaction between emotional word type, valence, and hemisphere. A significant hemisphere effect was observed during the processing of positive emotion-laden word pairs rather than positive emotion-label, negative emotion-label, and negative emotion-laden word pairs, with positive emotion-laden word pairs eliciting an enhanced P1 in the right hemisphere as compared to the left hemisphere. Our results found a dynamic attentional bias toward positive emotion-laden words; individuals allocated more attention to positive emotion-laden words in the early processing stage and had difficulty disengaging attention from them in the late processing stage.

A short review on emotion processing: a lateralized network of neuronal networks

Emotions are valenced mental responses and associated physiological reactions that occur spontaneously and automatically in response to internal or external stimuli, and can influence our behavior, and can themselves be modulated to a certain degree voluntarily or by external stimuli. They are subserved by large-scale integrated neuronal networks with epicenters in the amygdala and the hippocampus, and which overlap in the anterior cingulate cortex. Although emotion processing is accepted as being lateralized, the specific role of each hemisphere remains an issue of controversy, and two major hypotheses have been proposed. In the right-hemispheric dominance hypothesis, all emotions are thought to be processed in the right hemisphere, independent of their valence or of the emotional feeling being processed. In the valence lateralization hypothesis, the left is thought to be dominant for the processing of positively valenced stimuli, or of stimuli inducing approach behaviors, whereas negatively valenced stimuli, or stimuli inducing withdrawal behaviors, would be processed in the right hemisphere. More recent research points at the existence of multiple interrelated networks, each associated with the processing of a specific component of emotion generation, i.e., its generation, perception, and regulation. It has thus been proposed to move from hypotheses supporting an overall hemispheric specialization for emotion processing toward dynamic models incorporating multiple interrelated networks which do not necessarily share the same lateralization patterns.

Unisensory and Multisensory Stroop Effects Modulate Gender Differences in Verbal and Nonverbal Emotion Perception

Purpose This study aimed to examine the Stroop effects of verbal and nonverbal cues and their relative impacts on gender differences in unisensory and multisensory emotion perception. Method Experiment 1 investigated how well 88 normal Chinese adults (43 women and 45 men) could identify emotions conveyed through face, prosody and semantics as three independent channels. Experiments 2 and 3 further explored gender differences during multisensory integration of emotion through a cross-channel (prosody-semantics) and a cross-modal (face-prosody-semantics) Stroop task, respectively, in which 78 participants (41 women and 37 men) were asked to selectively attend to one of the two or three communication channels. Results The integration of accuracy and reaction time data indicated that paralinguistic cues (i.e., face and prosody) of emotions were consistently more salient than linguistic ones (i.e., semantics) throughout the study. Additionally, women demonstrated advantages in processing all three types of emotional signals in the unisensory task, but only preserved their strengths in paralinguistic processing and showed greater Stroop effects of nonverbal cues on verbal ones during multisensory perception. Conclusions These findings demonstrate clear gender differences in verbal and nonverbal emotion perception that are modulated by sensory channels, which have important theoretical and practical implications. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.16435599.

Exploring Affective Priming Effect of Emotion-Label Words and Emotion-Laden Words: An Event-Related Potential Study

In order to explore the affective priming effect of emotion-label words and emotion-laden words, the current study used unmasked (Experiment 1) and masked (Experiment 2) priming paradigm by including emotion-label words (e.g., sadness, anger) and emotion-laden words (e.g., death, gift) as primes and examined how the two kinds of words acted upon the processing of the target words (all emotion-laden words). Participants were instructed to decide the valence of target words, and their electroencephalogram was recorded at the same time. The behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) results showed that positive words produced a priming effect whereas negative words inhibited target word processing (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, the inhibition effect of negative emotion-label words on emotion word recognition was found in both behavioral and ERP results, suggesting that modulation of emotion word type on emotion word processing could be observed even in the masked priming paradigm. The two experiments further supported the necessity of defining emotion words under an emotion word type perspective. The implications of the findings are proffered. Specifically, a clear understanding of emotion-label words and emotion-laden words can improve the effectiveness of emotional communications in clinical settings. Theoretically, the emotion word type perspective awaits further explorations and is still at its infancy.

EmoPro - Emotional prototypicality for 1286 Spanish words: Relationships with affective and psycholinguistic variables

We present EmoPro, a normative study of the emotion lexicon of the Spanish language. We provide emotional prototypicality ratings for 1286 emotion words (i.e., those that refer to human emotions such as "fear" or "happy"), belonging to different grammatical categories. This is the largest data set for this variable so far. Each word was rated by at least 20 participants, and adequate reliability and validity rates for prototypicality scores were found. We also provide new affective (valence, arousal, emotionality, happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, and anger) and psycholinguistic (Age-of-Acquisition, frequency and concreteness) ratings for those words without prior data in the extant literature, and analyze which of the given variables contribute the most to prototypicality. A factor analysis on the affective and psycholinguistic variables has shown that prototypicality loads in a factor associated to the emotional salience of words. Furthermore, a regression analysis reveals a significant role of both dimensional and discrete- emotion-related variables, as well as a modest effect of AoA and frequency on the prediction of prototypicality. Cross-linguistic comparisons show that the pattern obtained here is similar to that observed in other languages. EmoPro norms will be highly valuable for researchers in the field, providing them with a tool to select the most representative emotion words in Spanish for their experimental (e.g., for a comparison with emotion-laden words, such as "murder" or "party") or applied studies (e.g., to examine the acquisition of emotion words/concepts in children). The full set of norms is available as supplementary material.

Functional Cerebral Specialization and Decision Making in the Iowa Gambling Task: A Single-Case Study of Left-Hemispheric Atrophy and Hemispherotomy

The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is a decision-making task that preferentially involves the right prefrontal cortex (PFC). However, the performance of the task is driven by two attributes: intertemporal (long vs. short-term) and frequency-based processing of rewards-punishments, and differs over the two phases of uncertainty (early trials) and risk (later trials). Although intertemporal decision making involves the right PFC, the extent of hemispheric specialization in attribute and phase-specific decision making is unknown. Therefore, the current study assessed decision making in a patient with a uni-hemispheric disease, who underwent hemispherotomy surgery, comparing pre-surgical IGT performance (3 days prior to surgery) with post-surgical performance (1 month, and 12 months post-surgery). The patient’s pre- and post-surgical IGT performances were analyzed to examine changes in attribute and phase-specific decision making, including the widely reported deck B phenomenon. The results for the two attributes of deck selection at the pre- and post-surgical assessments suggested marked changes in the two IGT phases of risk and uncertainty. Pre-surgery, the patient made more intertemporally disadvantageous choices, and task-progression contributed to it; within 1 month of surgery, intertemporal disadvantageous deck choices were contingent on task progression, after 1 year, disadvantageous choices were independent of task progression. Intertemporal attribute alteration was unresponsive to uncertainty and risk phase. The effect of task progression on frequency attribute remained unchanged before and immediately after the surgery, and preference for infrequent decks was observed only after 1 year. Further, pre and post surgery alteration in frequency attribute was phase-specific: within 1 month of surgery, infrequent deck choices decreased in uncertainty and increased in risk, whereas the reverse was observed after 12 months. Deck B choice increase was in the uncertainty phase. Results are discussed in reference to valence-linked hemispheric specialization and its potential role in attribute and phase-specific IGT decision making.

The influence of word valence on the right visual field advantage in the VHF paradigm: time to adjust the expectations

Previous studies found that valence and visual half-field have an influence on word reading: Words are processed more efficiently when they evoke positive feelings and when they appear in the right visual field. In the present study we tried to address previous (contradictory) reports of an interaction between valence and visual half-field.A group of 39 right-handed undergraduates completed a lexical decision task in their native language (Dutch). They responded to 300 trials with real words and 300 trials with non-words. Overall, participants responded more efficiently to positive words and there was a strong right visual field advantage. We did not find a significant interaction, however. Further analysis indicated that to find a replicable interaction between a stimulus characteristic and visual half-field, one requires much high numbers of participants and stimuli than done so far. Experimental power is particularly low when the interaction is not fully crossed (a right visual field advantage for one type of stimulus and an equally large left visual field advantage for the other type of stimulus). If such investment cannot be made, the outcome is likely to be ambiguous at best and deceiving at worst if only significant findings are published.

Emotion Words Modulate Early Conflict Processing in a Flanker Task: Differentiating Emotion-Label Words and Emotion-Laden Words in Second Language

Emotion words modulate conflict processing, even at an early stage (i.e., N200). However, the previous studies implicitly mixed emotion-label words and emotion-laden words together and mostly concentrated on first language (L1) rather than on second language (L2). The current study aimed to investigate whether L2 negative emotion-label words, negative emotion-laden words, and neutral words would affect conflict processing in a flanker task by using event-related potential (ERP) measurements. Twenty Chinese-English bilinguals completed a modified flanker task to decide the color of the target words. The results revealed that only L2 negative emotion-label words elicited larger left frontal N200 in the incongruent condition than in the congruent condition. No significant difference between the two conditions was observed for L2 negative emotion-laden words or neutral words. This research demonstrated that L2 emotion words could also modulate early conflict processing, at least for L2 negative emotion-label words.

Conflict Processing is Modulated by Positive Emotion Word Type in Second Language: An ERP Study

In the present study, we examined modulations of the second language (L2) positive emotion-label words, positive emotion-laden words, and neutral words on conflict processing in a flanker task. Twenty Chinese-English bilinguals were instructed to decide the color of the central words that were vertically surrounded by the same words with the same or different color. During the task, their cortical activation was recorded. The result showed that L2 positive emotion-laden words elicited different brain activations from emotion-label words and neutral words at both early and late stages. Differential modulations on conflict processing between positive emotion-label words and positive emotion-laden words in the L2 existed even after approach-motivation intensity was controlled. These results suggest emotion word type affects conflict processing, even in L2.

How do Emotion Word Type and Valence Influence Language Processing? The Case of Arabic-English Bilinguals

The current study examines the influence of word type (i.e., emotion-label vs. emotion-laden) and valence (i.e., positive vs. negative vs. neutral) on the processing of emotion words among bilinguals. To this end, three groups of Arabic-English bilinguals (n = 120 per group) completed the tasks of free recall, ratings for concreteness, imageability and context availability, and discrete word association. Two groups, representing different levels of second language (L2) exposure completed the tasks in English while the third group completed the tasks in Arabic. The results of the free recall and rating tasks generally supported the influence of word type, valence and L2 exposure on the processing of emotional content; namely, emotion-label vs. emotion-laden vs. neutral words and negative vs. positive emotion words generally behaved significantly differently, and the participants with increased L2 exposure usually outperformed the ones with less exposure. In contrast, the word association task often failed to present statistically significant findings. The results are interpreted in line with the specific nature of the Arabic mental lexicon, the existing literature, and relevant theoretical models of emotion and the bilingual mental lexicon. Directions for future research are proposed.

The Role of Emotional Valence for the Processing of Facial and Verbal Stimuli-Positivity or Negativity Bias?

Emotional valence is predominately conveyed in social interactions by words and facial expressions. The existence of broad biases which favor more efficient processing of positive or negative emotions is still a controversial matter. While so far this question has been investigated separately for each modality, in this narrative review of the literature we focus on valence effects in processing both words and facial expressions. In order to identify the factors underlying positivity and negativity effects, and to uncover whether these effects depend on modality and age, we present and analyze three representative overviews of the literature concerning valence effects in word processing, face processing, and combinations of word and face processing. Our analysis of word processing studies points to a positivity bias or a balanced processing of positive and negative words, whereas the analysis of face processing studies showed the existence of separate positivity and negativity biases depending on the experimental paradigm. The mixed results seem to be a product of the different methods and types of stimuli being used. Interestingly, we found that children exhibit a clear positivity advantage for both word and face processing, indicating similar processing biases in both modalities. Over the course of development, the initial positivity advantage gradually disappears, and in some face processing studies even reverses into a negativity bias. We therefore conclude that there is a need for future research that systematically analyses the impact of age and modality on the emergence of these valence effects. Finally, we discuss possible explanations for the presence of the early positivity advantage and its subsequent decrease.

Different Neural Correlates of Emotion-Label Words and Emotion-Laden Words: An ERP Study

It is well-documented that both emotion-label words (e.g., sadness, happiness) and emotion-laden words (e.g., death, wedding) can induce emotion activation. However, the neural correlates of emotion-label words and emotion-laden words recognition have not been examined. The present study aimed to compare the underlying neural responses when processing the two kinds of words by employing event-related potential (ERP) measurements. Fifteen Chinese native speakers were asked to perform a lexical decision task in which they should judge whether a two-character compound stimulus was a real word or not. Results showed that (1) emotion-label words and emotion-laden words elicited similar P100 at the posteriors sites, (2) larger N170 was found for emotion-label words than for emotion-laden words at the occipital sites on the right hemisphere, and (3) negative emotion-label words elicited larger Late Positivity Complex (LPC) on the right hemisphere than on the left hemisphere while such effect was not found for emotion-laden words and positive emotion-label words. The results indicate that emotion-label words and emotion-laden words elicit different cortical responses at both early (N170) and late (LPC) stages. In addition, right hemisphere advantage for emotion-label words over emotion-laden words can be observed in certain time windows (i.e., N170 and LPC) while fails to be detected in some other time window (i.e., P100). The implications of the current findings for future emotion research were discussed.