Children’s emotional norms for 600 French words

Affective Norms for Chinese Words of Typical Life Scenes Rated by Older Adults (ANCO)

The present study provides an affective norm collected from older adults for 1,050 Chinese words that are closely related to the typical life scenes commonly encountered by older adults. Data were collected for key affective dimensions of valence and arousal using the method of adapted Self-Assessment Manikin (Bradley & Lang, 1994) in a paper-and-pencil procedure. The results showed that the current database (ANCO) was of high reliability and validity. Valence and arousal were in an asymmetrically quadratic relationship in the valence-by-arousal space; i.e., older adults rated negative words as the highest arousing, followed by positive and neutral words. In addition, by comparing affective ratings of the shared words between the present norm collected from older Chinese adults and previous norms collected from young Chinese adults (Wang et al., 2008; Yao et al., 2017; Yu et al., 2016), we found that compared with young adults, older ones perceived negative words as more negative and more arousing, and perceived positive words as more positive and less arousing. ANCO can serve as a valuable source of information for age-related affective research and help explicate the effects of emotion on linguistic and cognitive processes.

A Systematic Review of International Affective Picture System (IAPS) around the World

Standardized Emotion Elicitation Databases (SEEDs) allow studying emotions in laboratory settings by replicating real-life emotions in a controlled environment. The International Affective Pictures System (IAPS), containing 1182 coloured images as stimuli, is arguably the most popular SEED. Since its introduction, multiple countries and cultures have validated this SEED, making its adoption on the study of emotion a worldwide success. For this review, 69 studies were included. Results focus on the discussion of validation processes by combining self-report and physiological data (Skin Conductance Level, Heart Rate Variability and Electroencephalography) and self-report only. Cross-age, cross-cultural and sex differences are discussed. Overall, IAPS is a robust instrument for emotion elicitation around the world.

Exploring the perception of stress in childhood and early adolescence

Stressful life experiences may jeopardize the healthy development of children. To improve interventions, more knowledge is needed on the perception of stress by children. In adults, stress is regarded as a state of low valence and high arousal. It is unclear whether children perceive stress similarly. In the current study, 35 children of the general population completed three tasks aiming to provide insight into their knowledge of the concept stress. In the first task, participants were asked about their verbal knowledge of the concept stress. In the second task, they rated the valence and arousal of eight emotion-evoking vignettes. In the final task, participants completed an experience sampling survey for at least 1 day, consisting of a stress thermometer and pictorial scales of valence and arousal. Participants' perception of stress was found to be mainly valence focused. Age and sex were found to play a role in the degree of arousal focus. Older participants differentiated more in arousal levels than younger participants, as did girls in comparison with boys. Because the perception of stress depends on developmental and other individual factors, using stress as a single measurement dimension in a survey is not recommended.

Spanish affective normative data for 1,406 words rated by children and adolescents (SANDchild)

Most research on the relationship between emotion and language in children relies on the use of words whose affective properties have been assessed by adults. To overcome this limitation, in the current study we introduce SANDchild, the Spanish affective database for children. This dataset reports ratings in the valence and the arousal dimensions for a large corpus of 1406 Spanish words rated by a large sample of 1276 children and adolescents from four different age groups (7, 9, 11 and 13 years old). We observed high inter-rater reliabilities for both valence and arousal in the four age groups. However, some age differences were found. In this sense, ratings for both valence and arousal decreased with age. Furthermore, the youngest children consider more words to be positive than adolescents. We also found sex differences in valence scores since boys gave higher valence ratings than girls, while girls considered more words to be negative than boys. The norms provided in this database will allow us to further extend our knowledge on the acquisition, development and processing of emotional language from childhood to adolescence. The complete database can be downloaded from https://psico.fcep.urv.cat/exp/files/SANDchild.xlsx .

Affective norms for 720 French words rated by children and adolescents (FANchild)

FANchild (French Affective Norms for Children) provides norms of valence and arousal for a large corpus of French words (N = 720) rated by 908 French children and adolescents (ages 7, 9, 11, and 13). The ratings were made using the Self-Assessment Manikin (Lang, 1980). Because it combines evaluations of arousal and valence and includes ratings provided by 7-, 9-, 11-, and 13-year-olds, this database complements and extends existing French-language databases. Good response reliability was observed in each of the four age groups. Despite a significant level of consensus, we found age differences in both the valence and arousal ratings: Seven- and 9-year-old children gave higher mean valence and arousal ratings than did the other age groups. Moreover, the tendency to judge words positively (i.e., positive bias) decreased with age. This age- and sex-related database will enable French-speaking researchers to study how the emotional character of words influences their cognitive processing, and how this influence evolves with age. FANchild is available at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Catherine_Monnier/contributions .

Affective norms of 875 Spanish words for five discrete emotional categories and two emotional dimensions

In the present study, we introduce affective norms for a new set of Spanish words, the Madrid Affective Database for Spanish (MADS), that were scored on two emotional dimensions (valence and arousal) and on five discrete emotional categories (happiness, anger, sadness, fear, and disgust), as well as on concreteness, by 660 Spanish native speakers. Measures of several objective psycholinguistic variables--grammatical class, word frequency, number of letters, and number of syllables--for the words are also included. We observed high split-half reliabilities for every emotional variable and a strong quadratic relationship between valence and arousal. Additional analyses revealed several associations between the affective dimensions and discrete emotions, as well as with some psycholinguistic variables. This new corpus complements and extends prior databases in Spanish and allows for designing new experiments investigating the influence of affective content in language processing under both dimensional and discrete theoretical conceptions of emotion. These norms can be downloaded as supplemental materials for this article from www.dropbox.com/s/o6dpw3irk6utfhy/Hinojosa%20et%20al_Supplementary%20materials.xlsx?dl=0 .

Depression risk and electrocortical reactivity during self-referential emotional processing in 8 to 14 year-old girls

Cognitive vulnerabilities, such as a negative self-referential processing bias, have been theorized to play a causal role in the development of depression. Indeed, depression is associated with the endorsement and recall of more negative and fewer positive emotional words (i.e., recall biases) in the self-referential encoding task (SRET). In addition, currently depressed adults and adolescents, compared to healthy controls, show an enhanced late positive potential (LPP), an event-related potential (ERP) component that reflects sustained attentional engagement, during the processing of negative relative to positive words in the SRET. However, it is unclear whether these behavioral and neural measures in the SRET are indicators of risk for depression, or are concomitants of the disorder. The present study included 121 8 to 14 year-old girls with no lifetime history of depression, and examined the association between maternal history of depression (i.e., risk) and both behavioral and ERP measures while viewing positive and negative adjectives during the SRET. Lifetime history of major depressive disorder and/or dysthymia in the biological mother was assessed via a semistructured diagnostic interview. Results indicated that participants with maternal history of depression, compared with those with no maternal history of depression, demonstrated an enhanced LPP to negative words. There were no group differences in the LPP to positive words. Maternal history of depression was also related to faster response time when rejecting negative words. Participant's current depression symptoms were associated with increased negative recall bias and decreased positive recall bias. The present study provides novel evidence that abnormal electrocortical reactivity to negative self-referential words indexes vulnerability for depression in 8 to 14 year-old girls. (PsycINFO Database Record

Verbal emotional memory in a case with left amygdala damage

The amygdala nuclei appear to be critically implicated in emotional memory. However, in most studies, encoding and consolidation processes cannot be analyzed separately. We thus studied the verbal emotional memory in a young woman with a ganglioglioma of the left amygdala and analyzed its impact (1) on each step of the memory process (encoding, retrieval, and recognition) (2) on short- and long-term consolidation (1-hour and 1-week delay) and (3) on processing of valence (positive and negative items compared to neutral words). Results showed emotional encoding impairments and, after encoding was controlled for, emotional long-term consolidation. Finally, although the negative words were not acknowledged as emotionally arousing by the patient, these words were specifically poorly encoded, recalled, and consolidated. Our data suggest that separate cerebral networks support the processing of emotional versus neutral stimuli.

Affective norms for French words (FAN)

The present study provides affective norms for a large corpus of French words (N = 1,031) that were rated on emotional valence and emotional arousal by 469 French young adults. Ratings were made using the Self-Assessment Manikin (Lang, 1980). By combining evaluations of valence and arousal, and including ratings provided by male and female young adults, this database complements and extends existing French-language databases. The response reliability for the two affective dimensions was good, and the consistency between the present and previous ratings was high. We found a strong quadratic relationship between the valence and arousal ratings. Perceptions of the affective content of a word were partly linked to sex. This new affective database (FAN) will enable French-speaking researchers to select suitable materials for studies of how the character of affective words influences their cognitive processing. FAN is available as an online supplement downloadable with this article.

Emotional norms for 524 French personality trait words

Newly measured rating norms provide a database of emotion-related dimensions for 524 French trait words. Measures include valence, approach/avoidance tendencies associated with the trait, possessor- and other-relevance of the trait, and discrete emotions conveyed by the trait (i.e., anger, disgust, fear, happiness, and sadness). The normative data were obtained from 328 participants and were revealed to be stable across samples and gender. These data go beyond a dimensional structure and consider more fine-grained descriptions such as the categorical emotions, as well as the perspective of the evaluator conveyed by the traits. They should thus be particularly useful for researchers interested in emotion or in the emotional dimension of cognition, action, or personality. The database is available as supplementary material.

Is sleep-related consolidation impaired in focal idiopathic epilepsies of childhood? A pilot study

We investigated sleep-related declarative memory consolidation in four children with focal idiopathic epilepsy. In a population of healthy control children, recall of learned pairs of words was increased after a night of sleep, but not after a daytime wakefulness period. In children with epilepsy (1 case of benign epilepsy with centro-temporal spikes, 1 case of benign childhood epilepsy with occipital paroxysms, and 2 cases of epileptic encephalopathy (EE) with continuous spike and waves during slow-wave sleep, CSWS), recall performance significantly decreased overnight, suggesting impairment in sleep-related declarative memory consolidation. Hydrocortisone treatment in one patient with EE with CSWS resulted in normalization of the sleep EEG together with normalization of overnight memory performance, which was not the case in the other EE/CSWS patient whose sleep EEG was only partially improved. These preliminary results suggest that interictal epileptiform discharges in idiopathic focal epilepsies may disrupt the brain processes underlying sleep-related memory consolidation.