The Affective Meaning of Words is Constrained by the Conceptual Meaning

Hongyan Liu,Zhiguo Hu

doi:10.1007/s10936-019-09663-w

Abstract

To directly investigate the reciprocal causal relationship of the conceptual and affective meaning of words, two priming experiments were conducted with the lexical decision task. In Experiment 1, the influence of semantic relatedness on the affective priming effect was explored by manipulating the semantic associative strength between the prime and target words (i.e., high vs. low) while keeping the affective association between them constant (i.e., affectively congruent). In Experiment 2, the influence of the affective meaning on the semantic priming effect was explored by manipulating the emotional congruency of the prime and target words (i.e., congruent vs. incongruent) while keeping the semantic association between them constant (i.e., high associative strength). The results of Experiment 1 showed that when the semantic associative strength between the prime and target words was high, there was a significant affective priming effect, while no significant affective priming effect was found when the associative strength was low. The results of Experiment 2 revealed that in both the emotionally congruent and incongruent conditions, a significant semantic priming effect was obtained. These findings suggest that conceptual meaning is a more obligatory representation in words and that the processing of the affective meaning is constrained by the conceptual meaning of words.

Highlights

As the basic unit of language, words are central to the comprehension of the language system
Experiment 1 explored the influence of semantic relatedness on the affective priming effect, and the results showed that when the semantic associative strength between the prime and target word was high, there was a significant affective priming effect, while no significant affective priming effect was found when the associative strength was low
Experiment 2 explored the influence of the affective meaning on the semantic priming effect, and the results showed that in both the emotionally congruent and incongruent conditions, a significant semantic priming effect was obtained in the context of a strong semantic association between the prime and target words

Summary

Introduction

As the basic unit of language, words are central to the comprehension of the language system. It has been argued that affective evaluation is the very first stage in object processing, which is termed ‘the affective primacy hypothesis’ (Zajonc 1980, 2000) According to this hypothesis, the retrieval of the evaluative or affective meaning precedes the retrieval of the descriptive or conceptual meaning of a word. Studies have shown that reliable affective priming effects, whereby primes facilitate the encoding of affectively congruent targets, have been consistently observed at short stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) (less than 300 ms) (e.g., De Houwer et al 2002; Fazio et al 1986; Hermans et al 1994, 2001; for a review, see Klauer and Musch 2003) These studies demonstrated that affective processing is more of an automatic process and is faster than semantic processing (De Houwer et al 2002; Hermans et al 1994, 2001; Murphy and Zajone 1993)

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Conclusion