Emotional Word Recognition Research Articles

Recognition of emotional words: Response time effects of novelty.

Recognition of emotional words: Response time effects of novelty.

Reproducing affective norms with lexical co-occurrence statistics: Predicting valence, arousal, and dominance.

Human ratings of valence, arousal, and dominance are frequently used to study the cognitive mechanisms of emotional attention, word recognition, and numerous other phenomena in which emotions are hypothesized to play an important role. Collecting such norms from human raters is expensive and time consuming. As a result, affective norms are available for only a small number of English words, are not available for proper nouns in English, and are sparse in other languages. This paper investigated whether affective ratings can be predicted from length, contextual diversity, co-occurrences with words of known valence, and orthographic similarity to words of known valence, providing an algorithm for estimating affective ratings for larger and different datasets. Our bootstrapped ratings achieved correlations with human ratings on valence, arousal, and dominance that are on par with previously reported correlations across gender, age, education and language boundaries. We release these bootstrapped norms for 23,495 English words.

Test–retest reliability and task order effects of emotional cognitive tests in healthy subjects

ABSTRACTLittle is known of the retest reliability of emotional cognitive tasks or the impact of using different tasks employing similar emotional stimuli within a battery. We investigated this in healthy subjects. We found improved overall performance in an emotional attentional blink task (EABT) with repeat testing at one hour and one week compared to baseline, but the impact of an emotional stimulus on performance was unchanged. Similarly, performance on a facial expression recognition task (FERT) was better one week after a baseline test, though the relative effect of specific emotions was unaltered. There was no effect of repeat testing on an emotional word categorising, recall and recognition task. We found no difference in performance in the FERT and EABT irrespective of task order. We concluded that it is possible to use emotional cognitive tasks in longitudinal studies and combine tasks using emotional facial stimuli in a single battery.

105. Prefrontal cortical activation and BAS contribute to emotional word memories – rTMS and EEG (Alpha Band) measures

The present research addressed where in the brain memories for emotional words could be represented. A second main topic is related to the effect of personality trait, in terms of Behavior Activation System (BAS), in emotional word recognition. We tested the left DLPFC (LDLPFC) role by performing a memory task in which old and new positive or negative emotional words had to be recognised. The valence model of emotion processing supported the frontal left-lateralization more than right-lateralization for positive emotions. High-BAS and low-BAS subjects were compared when a repetitive TMS (rTMS) was applied on the left DLPFC. We found a better performance for high-BAS in response to positive words. Secondly, the effect induced by TMS on the left hemisphere was more proficient in the case of higher BAS subjects, when a positive word was recognised. In parallel, an increased left cortical activity was observed for high-BAS more than low-BAS in case of positive cue processing. We can conclude that cortical stimulation of the left and BAS-related hemisphere may support faster recognition of positively valenced words. Valence model and BAS system may explain the left DLPFC lateralization effect in response to positive memories.

Motivational mechanisms (BAS) and prefrontal cortical activation contribute to recognition memory for emotional words. rTMS effect on performance and EEG (alpha band) measures

The present research addressed the question of where memories for emotional words could be represented in the brain. A second main question was related to the effect of personality traits, in terms of the Behavior Activation System (BAS), in emotional word recognition. We tested the role of the left DLPFC (LDLPFC) by performing a memory task in which old (previously encoded targets) and new (previously not encoded distractors) positive or negative emotional words had to be recognized. High-BAS and low-BAS subjects were compared when a repetitive TMS (rTMS) was applied on the LDLPFC. We found significant differences between high-BAS vs. low-BAS subjects, with better performance for high-BAS in response to positive words. In parallel, an increased left cortical activity (alpha desynchronization) was observed for high-BAS in the case of positive words. Thus, we can conclude that the left approach-related hemisphere, underlying BAS, may support faster recognition of positive words.

Emotion word recognition: Discrete information effects first, continuous later?

Manipulations of either discrete emotions (e.g. happiness) or affective dimensions (e.g. positivity) have a long tradition in emotion research, but interactive effects have never been studied, based on the assumption that the two underlying theories are incompatible. Recent theorizing suggests, however, that the human brain relies on two affective processing systems, one working on the basis of discrete emotion categories, and the other working along affective dimensions. Presenting participants with an orthogonal manipulation of happiness and positivity in a lexical decision task, the present study meant to test the appropriateness of this assumption in emotion word recognition. Behavioral and electroencephalographic data revealed independent effects for both variables, with happiness affecting the early visual N1 component, while positivity affected an N400-like component and the late positive complex. These results are interpreted as evidence for a sequential processing of affective information, with discrete emotions being the basis for later dimensional appraisal processes.

Emotional valence and arousal affect reading in an interactive way: Neuroimaging evidence for an approach-withdrawal framework

A growing body of literature shows that the emotional content of verbal material affects reading, wherein emotional words are given processing priority compared to neutral words. Human emotions can be conceptualised within a two-dimensional model comprised of emotional valence and arousal (intensity). These variables are at least in part distinct, but recent studies report interactive effects during implicit emotion processing and relate these to stimulus-evoked approach-withdrawal tendencies.The aim of the present study was to explore how valence and arousal interact at the neural level, during implicit emotion word processing. The emotional attributes of written word stimuli were orthogonally manipulated based on behavioural ratings from a corpus of emotion words. Stimuli were presented during an fMRI experiment while 16 participants performed a lexical decision task, which did not require explicit evaluation of a word′s emotional content.Results showed greater neural activation within right insular cortex in response to stimuli evoking conflicting approach-withdrawal tendencies (i.e., positive high-arousal and negative low-arousal words) compared to stimuli evoking congruent approach vs. withdrawal tendencies (i.e., positive low-arousal and negative high-arousal words). Further, a significant cluster of activation in the left extra-striate cortex was found in response to emotional than neutral words, suggesting enhanced perceptual processing of emotionally salient stimuli.These findings support an interactive two-dimensional approach to the study of emotion word recognition and suggest that the integration of valence and arousal dimensions recruits a brain region associated with interoception, emotional awareness and sympathetic functions.

Emotion words and categories: evidence from lexical decision

We examined the categorical nature of emotion word recognition. Positive, negative, and neutral words were presented in lexical decision tasks. Word frequency was additionally manipulated. In Experiment 1, "positive" and "negative" categories of words were implicitly indicated by the blocked design employed. A significant emotion-frequency interaction was obtained, replicating past research. While positive words consistently elicited faster responses than neutral words, only lowfrequency negative words demonstrated a similar advantage. In Experiments 2a and 2b, explicit categories ("positive," "negative," and "household" items) were specified to participants. Positive words again elicited faster responses than did neutral words. Responses to negative words, however, were no different than those to neutral words, regardless of their frequency. The overall pattern of effects indicates that positive words are always facilitated, frequency plays a greater role in the recognition of negative words, and a "negative" category represents a somewhat disparate set of emotions. These results support the notion that emotion word processing may be moderated by distinct systems.

Acquired affective associations induce emotion effects in word recognition: An ERP study

The present study examined how contextual learning and in particular emotionality conditioning impacts the neural processing of words, as possible key factors for the acquisition of words’ emotional connotation. 21 participants learned on five consecutive days associations between meaningless pseudowords and unpleasant or neutral pictures using an evaluative conditioning paradigm. Subsequently, event-related potentials were recorded while participants implicitly processed the learned emotional relevance in a lexical decision paradigm. Emotional and neutral words were presented together with the conditioned pseudowords and a set of new pseudowords. Conditioned and new pseudowords differed in the late positive complex. Emotionally and neutrally conditioned stimuli differed in an early time window (80–120ms) and in the P300. These results replicate ERP effects known from emotion word recognition and indicate that contextual learning and in particular evaluative conditioning is suitable to establish emotional associations in words, and to explain early ERP effects in emotion word recognition.

Caffeine improves left hemisphere processing of positive words.

A positivity advantage is known in emotional word recognition in that positive words are consistently processed faster and with fewer errors compared to emotionally neutral words. A similar advantage is not evident for negative words. Results of divided visual field studies, where stimuli are presented in either the left or right visual field and are initially processed by the contra-lateral brain hemisphere, point to a specificity of the language-dominant left hemisphere. The present study examined this effect by showing that the intake of caffeine further enhanced the recognition performance of positive, but not negative or neutral stimuli compared to a placebo control group. Because this effect was only present in the right visual field/left hemisphere condition, and based on the close link between caffeine intake and dopaminergic transmission, this result points to a dopaminergic explanation of the positivity advantage in emotional word recognition.

L'influence de la richesse sémantique dans la reconnaissance visuelle des mots émotionnels.

The aim of this study was to expand our knowledge of the influence of emotional valence on visual word recognition by answering two questions. The first was to examine whether the emotional valence effect is sensitive to different types of task requirements, and the second was to examine whether words polysemy can modulate the effect of emotional valence. For this purpose, we manipulated orthogonally emotional valence (negative, positive and neutral words) and polysemy (polysemous vs. non polysemous words) in two versions of the lexical-decision task (one with legal nonwords and one with illegal nonwords). Results showed an effect of task: emotional valence and polysemy influenced lexical decision latencies only in the legal version of the lexical-decision task. Furthermore, results showed that the effect of polysemy was dependant on emotional valence. We observed a facilitation of polysemy for neutral words but not for emotional ones. Finally this experiment also showed that polysemy modulates the emotional valence effect. The facilitation observed for non polysemous emotional words compared to non polysemous neutral words disappeared for polysemous words. These findings fit with other studies showing facilitation for emotional word recognition and allow conclusions concerning the role of semantics on emotional word recognition.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Correlates of Emotional Word Encoding and Recognition in Depression and Anxiety Disorders

Major depressive disorder (MDD), panic disorder, and social anxiety disorder are among the most prevalent and frequently co-occurring psychiatric disorders in adults and may be characterized by a common deficiency in processing of emotional information. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging during the performance of an emotional word encoding and recognition paradigm in patients with MDD (n = 51), comorbid MDD and anxiety (n = 59), panic disorder and/or social anxiety disorder without comorbid MDD (n = 56), and control subjects (n = 49). In addition, we studied effects of illness severity, regional brain volume, and antidepressant use. Patients with MDD, prevalent anxiety disorders, or both showed a common hyporesponse in the right hippocampus during positive (>neutral) word encoding compared with control subjects. During negative encoding, increased insular activation was observed in both depressed groups (MDD and MDD + anxiety), whereas increased amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex activation during positive word encoding were observed as depressive state-dependent effects in MDD only. During recognition, anxiety patients showed increased inferior frontal gyrus activation. Overall, effects were unaffected by medication use and regional brain volume. Hippocampal blunting during positive word encoding is a generic effect in depression and anxiety disorders, which may constitute a common vulnerability factor. Increased insular and amygdalar involvement during negative word encoding may underlie heightened experience of, and an inability to disengage from, negative emotions in depressive disorders. Our results emphasize a common neurobiological deficiency in both MDD and anxiety disorders, which may mark a general insensitiveness to positive information.

Increased activation of the left hippocampus region in Complex PTSD during encoding and recognition of emotional words: A pilot study

To gain insight into memory disturbances in Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (Complex PTSD), we investigated declarative memory function and medial temporal lobe activity in patients and healthy non-traumatized controls. A case-control study was performed in nine patients with Complex PTSD and nine controls. All respondents performed a declarative memory task with neutral and emotional, negative words during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Memory performance of neutral words was impaired in Complex PTSD with a relative conservation of recall of negative words. Deep encoding of later remembered negative words, as well as correct recognition of negative words and false alarms, was associated with an enhanced Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent (BOLD) response in the left hippocampus extending into the parahippocampal gyrus of Complex PTSD patients compared with controls. Post-hoc volumetric comparisons did not reveal significant anatomical differences in the medial temporal lobe between Complex PTSD patients and controls. We conclude that in Complex PTSD preferential recall of negative words is associated with increased activation in the left hippocampus and parahippocampal gyrus during both successful and false recall. These findings support a model of an abnormally functioning hippocampus in Complex PTSD.

Recollective Experience During Recognition of Emotional Words in Clinical Depression

Earlier work has shown that free recall tasks produce a robust mood-congruent memory effect in depression, whereas recognition tasks produce heterogeneous results. This study aimed to further investigate recognition memory for positive, negative and neutral words in depressed patients and matched comparison participants with the Remember/Know/Guess procedure for assessing recollection and familiarity. No mood-congruent memory bias effect was detected in discrimination abilities. However, depressed patients recollected (more Remember responses) more negative than positive or neutral words, whereas comparison participants recollected more positive than neutral words. No mood-congruent pattern was evidenced for Know responses. However, the depressed patients responded to fewer words overall with Know responses than the comparison participants. These results suggest that the mood-congruent memory pattern in depressed patients is related to conscious recollection rather than to familiarity. Attentional biases toward negative words and elaboration processes and/or encoding in reference to the self may contribute to these findings.

Emotional memory for words: Separating content and context

We developed a technique to examine the effects of emotional content and context on verbal memory. Two sets of sentences were devised: in the first, each sentence was emotionally arousing due to the inclusion of an emotional “target” word. In the second set, “targets” were replaced with well-matched neutral words. Subjects read aloud a selection of emotional and neutral sentences, and were then surprised with memory tasks after a range of time delays. Emotional target words were remembered significantly better than neutral words in all experiments. Recognition of emotional words was relatively stable despite increasing delays between encoding and recognition testing, in contrast to memory for neutral words, which decayed over time. Memory for neutral non-target words was enhanced when words had been presented in an emotional context. The results confirm the phenomenon of emotional enhancement of memory at short and long delays and suggest that emotional context may be encoded independently of word meaning.

An electrophysiological comparison of recollection for emotional words using an exclusion recognition paradigm

The positive-going shift of event-related potential (ERP) components that occur when recognizing emotional words has been thought to be due to valence effects on either recollection or familiarity. This study investigated the independent contributions of recollection and familiarity on recognition of emotional words in order to examine which is thus responsible for the greater magnitude of ERP components seen in response to recognition of emotional, as opposed to neutral words. ERPs were measured while participants completed an exclusion recognition task. In the test phase, participants were required to respond “old” only to target items, which were included in one of two lists that were presented in the study phase. They were also asked to respond “new” to distracters and non-target items that were in the other previously presented list. “Old” responses to targets and non-targets were contrasted with an ERP analysis. Results suggested that the late positivity reflected recollection. The magnitude of this positivity, elicited around the left parietal area, was greater for negative stimuli compared to neutral and positive stimuli. The findings of the present study suggested that enhanced recollection of negative words may contribute to increased magnitudes of components such as the LPC. The emotional valence of words may have separate behavioral and electrophysiological effects on recollection and familiarity.

Emotional memory in depersonalization disorder: A functional MRI study

This study examines emotional memory effects in primary depersonalization disorder (DPD). A core complaint of DPD sufferers is the dulling of emotional responses, and previous work has shown that, in response to aversive stimuli, DPD patients do not show activation of brain regions involved in normal emotional processing. We hypothesized that DPD sufferers would not show the normal emotional enhancement of memory, and that they would not show activation of brain regions concerned with emotional processing during encoding and recognition of emotional verbal material. Using fMRI, 10 DPD patients were compared with an age-matched healthy control group while performing a test of emotional verbal memory, comprising one encoding and two recognition memory tasks. DPD patients showed significantly enhanced recognition for overtly emotive words, but did not show enhancement of memory for neutral words encoded in an emotive context. In addition, patients did not show activation of emotional processing areas during encoding, and exhibited no substantial difference in their neural responses to emotional and neutral material in the encoding and emotional word recognition tasks. This study provides further evidence that patients with DPD do not process emotionally salient material in the same way as healthy controls, in accordance with their subjective descriptions of reduced or absent emotional responses.

Emotional Word Detection and Adolescent Repressive?Defensive Coping Style

This study used a computer-based emotional word-recognition task to assess the emotional processing styles of repressive–defensive youth. A hypothesis was tested proposing that adolescent repressive– defensive coping style is associated with rapid engagement and disengagement of emotional stimuli (negative and positive). Data were collected on a male adolescent sample enrolled in a juvenile diversion program allowing for the comparison of anxious, low-anxious, and repressive–defensive youth. Consistent with prediction, repressive–defensive participants exhibited facilitated responding to emotional relative to neutral word stimuli across valence category (i.e., positive and negative). In contrast, anxious participants exhibited a unique pattern of facilitated responding to positive word stimuli. The current findings represent a first attempt at investigating the processing impairments of repressive–defensive coping style in a nonadult sample. Results are interpreted in light of broader adult and child research findings on emotional processing and affective disturbance.

Evidence for Changed Recognition of Emotionally Charged Words in Patients with Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Patients with Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (TS) frequently show obsessions and compulsions. Pathophysiologically, TS has been linked to abnormalities of the basal ganglia and forebrain which are related to emotional processes. Because recordings of event-related potentials (ERPs) have shown that the emotional content of words interacts with the subjects' ability to recognise repeated words we hypothesised that patients who were diagnosed to have TS and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) utilised a changed cognitive process for the recognition of emotional words. ERPs were recorded while 12 patients and matched control subjects viewed a series of emotionally neutral, negative, and positive words. These were repeated after some intervening items with the task being to discriminate between new words and repeated words. In both groups, correctly detected repeated words showed a more positive ERP waveform than new words between 350msec and 550msec after stimulus presentation. Although we found no group difference of this old-new effect for emotionally neutral words, patients had a smaller effect than control subjects for negative and positive words. This finding is discussed with respect to the literature and is viewed as evidence for changed memory mechanisms for emotionally charged words in patients with TS and OCD.

Laterality and sex differences for visual recognition of emotional and non-emotional words

Clinical and experimental evidence indicate that the right hemisphere possesses a special capacity for emotional non-verbal material. The possibility that this ability would extend to language was tested with a lexical decision paradigm using tachistoscopic double simultaneous presentation of emotional and non-emotional words. Male subjects showed an overall right visual field superiority with the predicted effect of emotional words in the left visual field. In contrast, the field advantages for females were more variable and showed evidence of a larger effect of emotional words in the right visual field. The imageability potential of words also appeared to influence the female performance.