Abstract
Foreign languages are often learned in emotionally neutral academic environments which differ greatly from the familiar context where native languages are acquired. This difference in learning contexts has been argued to lead to reduced emotional resonance when confronted with a foreign language. In the current study, we investigated whether the reactivity of the sympathetic nervous system in response to emotionally-charged stimuli is reduced in a foreign language. To this end, pupil sizes were recorded while reading aloud emotional sentences in the native or foreign language. Additionally, subjective ratings of emotional impact were provided after reading each sentence, allowing us to further investigate foreign language effects on explicit emotional understanding. Pupillary responses showed a larger effect of emotion in the native than in the foreign language. However, such a difference was not present for explicit ratings of emotionality. These results reveal that the sympathetic nervous system reacts differently depending on the language context, which in turns suggests a deeper emotional processing when reading in a native compared to a foreign language.
Highlights
Language is a very powerful tool to communicate emotions
As a more explicit measure, we asked participants to provide subjective ratings of emotional impact after reading each sentence. By comparing these two measures, we explored whether the differential effects that may be found in the foreign language could originate from difficulties in understanding the emotional content of the sentence, potentially due to the lower proficiency in the foreign language than in the native language, and/or by a reduced autonomic reactivity of the sympathetic nervous system that could arise from the emotional distance associated with foreign language processing
We explored the effect of language when reading neutral and emotional sentences on participants’ behavioral and implicit psychophysiological responses
Summary
Language is a very powerful tool to communicate emotions. We respond with an automatic emotional reponse when someone insults us or uses taboo words. We assess whether emotionally-charged sentences presented in native and foreign languages elicited the same emotional response. This is not the first study exploring this issue. Our novel contribution is the assessment of how the sympathetic nervous system reacts to emotionally related stimuli presented in the native and foreign languages. This reaction will be assessed by measuring pupil dilation
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