Emotional Evaluation Research Articles

Taking the temperature of time: The influence of temperature on people's metaphorical perspectives on time through emotion

AbstractSpace provides the conceptual scaffolding for the understanding of time. Customarily, the movement of events in time is metaphorically conceptualized from two spatial perspectives: the ego‐moving perspective that envisions an observer moving towards a stationary future and the time‐moving perspective that envisages the future moving towards a stationary observer. Extensive work has shown that emotions of opposite valence can yield contrary temporal perspective preferences. Relatedly, much evidence suggests that physical warmth and coldness prompt antithetical emotional evaluations. Threading together these two strands of insights, the current research explored whether ambient temperatures would influence people's metaphorical perspectives on time through a common link to emotion. Study 1 suggested that when deciphering two temporally ambiguous statements, people in warmer spring preferred the ego‐moving perspective, whilst those in colder winter favoured the time‐moving perspective. To determine a causal effect and test the hypothesized underlying mechanism of emotion, Study 2 examined the priming effect of temperature on temporal perspective preferences and emotional states. The results showed that differential temperatures induced opposite emotional responses, which in turn prompted diametric perspectives on time. These findings were replicated in Study 3 using an alternative measure of perspectives on time. Study 4 further validated the mediating role of emotion in the temperature–time relationship. Taken together, the current findings evince a unidirectional relationship between the incidental environmental factor of temperature and the metaphorical representation of time and accentuate the roles of sensory perception and emotional experience in temporal cognition.

Regulation of negative emotions through directed attention in high-trait-anxious women: Evidence from event-related potentials and eye-tracking

Abnormal emotional responses in high-trait-anxious (HTA) individuals may be related to the use of emotion regulation strategies. Directed attention is a substrategy of attention deployment, which has been proven to be effective in regulating individual negative emotions. The present study investigated whether HTA women can effectively utilize directed attention to decrease negative emotions. Two studies were conducted using the same directed attention paradigm, with one focusing on event-related potentials (ERPs) and the other utilizing eye-tracking techniques. Participants viewed negative and neutral pictures and rated their negative emotions experienced during viewing. During directed attention, attention was directed towards highly arousing aspects, less arousing aspects of negative pictures, or less arousing aspects of neutral pictures. In study 1, late positive potentials (LPP) were recorded in 26 HTA and 24 low-trait-anxious (LTA) women. In study 2, the latency of first fixation, the proportion of gaze duration and fixations in the specific area were recorded in 27 HTA and 23 LTA women. Both the HTA and LTA groups revealed a decrease in negative emotional ratings and LPP amplitudes when their attention was directed towards the less arousing aspects of negative pictures. Furthermore, in this condition, the HTA group had a shorter latency of first fixation on highly arousing aspects and a higher proportion of gaze duration on less arousing aspects of negative pictures compared to the LTA group. These results indicate that when confronted with negative pictures, HTA women are able to regulate their emotional responses through directed attention, which may be accompanied by attentional vigilance and avoidance tendencies.

Maternal interpretation of infant emotions related to mothers’ mindfulness and mother-infant stress

ABSTRACT We aimed to identify maternal characteristics predicting interpretation of infant emotions, as well as relations between such interpretations and mother-infant stress. Specifically, we investigated (1) prospective associations between maternal dispositional mindfulness and interpretation of infant emotions, and (2) concurrent associations between maternal interpretation of infant emotions and mothers’ and infants’ cortisol during a dyadic stressor in a non-clinical community sample (n = 78) of mother-infant dyads. Mothers completed the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire at 3 months postnatal, and the IFEEL Picture infant emotion interpretation task at 6 months postnatal. At 6-months, mother-infant dyads completed the Face-to-Face Still Face paradigm, and physiological stress was assessed via salivary cortisol. Regression analyses revealed significant links between aspects of maternal mindfulness – specifically, Observing, Describing, and Acting with Awareness facets – and infant emotion interpretation; more mindful mothers’ emotion ratings were less negatively biased and covered the full spectrum of infant emotions, congruent with the range of responses given by a low-risk reference sample. In turn, less negativity bias and greater interpretive congruence predicted lower infant and mother cortisol during the stress session, with effects small-medium in size. Findings highlight the potential role of maternal interpretation of infant emotions in mindful parenting.

Brainwave and Emotional Responses of Male and Females to Munsell’s Five Primary Colors

Purpose: The goal is to use quantified EEG and emotional responses to objectively assess the effects of color using gender-specific EEG data, as well as to analyze emotional responses concerning the psychological effects of color modulation. This study intends to apply these findings in various fields. Through this, we hope to better understand how color stimuli affect cognitive responses, brain activity, and emotional regulation.Methods: In this study, we evaluated the EEG and emotional responses to five basic color stimuli in male and females in their 20s. EEG analysis was performed using the Coefficient of Variation for the Brainwaves (CVBs), which is the ratio of the relative brainwave power difference to the baseline brainwave. The five colors were specified using the Munsell notation and RGB values. Emotional responses were evaluated using 10 pairs of adjectives to calculate the preference index(PI), average preference index(API), and favorability. The EEG and emotional evaluations were statistically analyzed using repeated-measures ANOVA in SPSS 22.Results: The EEG responses to the five-color stimuli revealed that both male and female experienced increased concentration and arousal with the red (R) and purple (P) stimuli. Colors yellow (Y) and green (G) caused relaxation and comfort in both genders. While male and females had different emotional responses to each color, the reactions were generally similar. Both male and females preferred the color R, while Y and P were equally popular. Color R significantly activated β and γ waves associated with concentration and arousal in both genders. Warm colors were found to elicit arousal, while cool colors induced feelings of comfort, as evidenced by EEG and emotional responses. The findings showed that EEG and emotional responses to color stimuli were similar across genders and that color had a significant and meaningful impact on brainwaves and emotions.Conclusion: The quantified findings of color-based brainwaves and emotional responses can be applied to various fields that use colors. By leveraging these findings, color perception is expected to have a strong influence on human brain activity and emotional regulation.

Momentary autonomic engagement during parent-adolescent conflict: Coping as a moderator of associations with emotions.

Regulatory efforts are hypothesized to affect associations between emotions and physiology (i.e., concordance) to facilitate adaptive functioning. Assessing the role of coping on physiological-emotional concordance during ecologically relevant scenarios can elucidate whether concordance can serve as a biomarker of risk or resilience. The present study assessed self-reported coping as a moderator of minute-to-minute associations between autonomic nervous system activity and emotions (i.e., physiological-emotional concordance) in caregivers (N = 97) and adolescents (N = 97; ages 10-15) during a dyadic conflict task. Models included physiological variables (sympathetic, skin conductance level [SCL]; and parasympathetic, respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]) and their interaction (SCL × RSA) as predictors of emotions, with coping variables as moderators. Caregivers' use of primary control coping (e.g., problem solving and emotional expression) and secondary control coping (e.g., cognitive reappraisal and acceptance) use in response to family stress predicted more positive emotional experiences during the laboratory conflict task. Adolescents' use of secondary control coping moderated the SCL-emotion association, such that increases in momentary SCL were associated with more positive emotion ratings for youth reporting higher secondary control coping. For youth who report more adaptive trait-level coping skills, momentary changes in SCL may reflect active engagement and attentiveness to facilitate more positive emotional experiences. Findings advance our understanding of the interrelationships between physiological responses and psychological experiences during relevant, interactive scenarios. Autonomic responses are differentially related to affective states depending on the coping strategies that adolescents employ, suggesting that concordance may be associated with intervention targets (i.e., coping skills).

Assessing Children's Autonomic Nervous System Activity During Structured Tasks: A Feasibility and Reliability Study in Ghana.

The significance of physiological regulation in relation to behavioral and emotional regulation is well documented, but primarily in economically advantaged contexts. Few studies have been conducted in low- and middle-income countries. We investigated the feasibility and reliability of measuring autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity and behavior during challenge tasks in 30 children aged 8-10 years in Ghana during two visits, 1 week apart. Completeness of ANS data ranged from 80% to 100% across all tasks. There was low-to-moderate test-retest reliability of video mood induction (VMI) emotion ratings and balloon analog risk task (BART) pumps (r=0.34-0.52). VMI elicited higher targeted emotion ratings in Visit 2 than Visit 1. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was higher, and pre-ejection period (PEP) was longer at Visit 2 than Visit 1 for baseline and both tasks. RSA was higher at baseline than during the VMI anger scene at Visit 1, whereas PEP was shorter at baseline than during all VMI emotion scenes at Visit 2. RSA was higher at baseline than during BART at both visits. In conclusion, ANS data collection within evocative and arousing challenge tasks was feasible in Ghana, and the tasks were generally reliable and effective in eliciting target emotions and risk-taking behavior in this sample.

Experimental evidence that activewear retail imagery elicits physiological, attentional and self-reported markers of body image threat in women

Online apparel retail imagery is a prominent threat to women’s body image, particularly segments such as activewear which emphasize the value of women’s bodies. In a within-subjects experiment, we exposed women (N = 128) to imagery randomly selected from activewear, casualwear and homewares websites and measured their gaze behavior, physiological arousal, as well as subjective emotional states and body image ratings. Exposure to activewear retail imagery elicited significantly lower body image ratings, a higher negative emotional state, and a lower positive emotional state compared to the other website imagery conditions. Physiological arousal was significantly higher for both apparel imagery conditions compared to the homewares imagery condition. Body biased gaze behavior was significantly higher for the activewear imagery condition compared to the casualwear imagery condition. Notably, body shame moderated the self-reported but not the physiological experimental effects, such that women with higher body shame experienced stronger adverse changes in their body image and emotional state ratings following activewear exposure. Correlations revealed that self-reported experimental responses to activewear imagery were strongly associated with self-objectification, appearance comparison, disordered eating and body image coping attitudes. Thus, exposure to popular apparel may play a role in maintaining maladaptive body image attitudes and behaviors in women.

What Determines Civil Servants’ Error Response? Evidence From a Conjoint Experiment

To err is human and learning from mistakes is essential for finding viable solutions to grand societal challenges through development and innovation. Yet, public organizations often exhibit a punitive zero-error culture, and public employees are stereotyped as error and risk-averse. Little is known about the underlying behavioral mechanisms that determine civil servants’ likelihood of handling errors positively, namely reporting and correcting them instead of ignoring and hiding them to avoid blame. Based on the transactional theory of stress coping, we argue that individuals’ error-handling strategies relate to both rational and emotional evaluations of error-specific and consequential contextual factors. Using a conjoint survey experiment conducted with N = 276 civil servants in Germany ( Obs. = 1,104), this study disentangles the effects of error-related, individual, and organization-cultural factors as decisive drivers of individuals’ error response. We find that error characteristics (type and harmfulness) determine error-handling behavior, which is revealed to be independent from organizational error culture and individual error orientation, providing important and novel insights for theory and practice.

Acquisition and generalization of emotional and neural responses to faces associated with negative and positive feedback behaviours.

Faces can acquire emotional meaning by learning to associate individuals with specific behaviors. Here, we investigated emotional evaluation and brain activations toward faces of persons who had given negative or positive evaluations to others. Furthermore, we investigated how emotional evaluations and brain activation generalize to perceptually similar faces. Valence ratings indicated learning and generalization effects for both positive and negative faces. Brain activation, measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), showed significantly increased activation in the fusiform gyrus (FG) to negatively associated faces but not positively associated ones. Remarkably, brain activation in FG to faces to which emotional meaning (negative and positive) was successfully generalized was decreased compared to neutral faces. This suggests that the emotional relevance of faces is not simply associated with increased brain activation in visual areas. While, at least for negative conditions, faces paired with negative feedback behavior are related to potentiated brain responses, the opposite is seen for perceptually very similar faces despite generalized emotional responses.

Emotions and emotion regulation in L2 classroom speaking tasks: A mixed‐methods study combining the idiodynamic and quantitative perspectives

AbstractThis study used idiodynamic methodology to investigate the dynamics of second language (L2) learners’ foreign language anxiety (FLA) and foreign language enjoyment (FLE), and the details of emotion regulation (ER) directed at managing these emotions, in pair‐ and group‐work speaking tasks performed by 10 advanced English‐as‐a‐foreign‐language (EFL) learners. L2 classroom tasks were video recorded and then while viewing them, participants registered their emotion ratings per second. In stimulated‐recall interviews, they revealed the causes of emotional intensity fluctuations and ER strategies used to manage the emotions. Additionally, the adapted Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data from a larger same‐population sample (N = 103). The major high ecological validity results concerned (a) the highly individual patterns of emotional intensity fluctuations, with FLA fluctuating more than FLE, (b) the common triggers and mitigators of FLA and FLE—including specific errors, performance deficits, and message‐conceptualization problems—and FLE triggers and mitigators related to its social aspect, (c) the varying degrees of the relationship between FLE and FLA, which depends on communication dynamics, and (d) a range of ER strategies, including their chains (sequences) and clusters (co‐occurrence), with a special focus on the most common category—namely, cognitive ER, some types of which emerged as automatic ER processes.

A Multimodal Dataset for Mixed Emotion Recognition

Mixed emotions have attracted increasing interest recently, but existing datasets rarely focus on mixed emotion recognition from multimodal signals, hindering the affective computing of mixed emotions. On this basis, we present a multimodal dataset with four kinds of signals recorded while watching mixed and non-mixed emotion videos. To ensure effective emotion induction, we first implemented a rule-based video filtering step to select the videos that could elicit stronger positive, negative, and mixed emotions. Then, an experiment with 80 participants was conducted, in which the data of EEG, GSR, PPG, and frontal face videos were recorded while they watched the selected video clips. We also recorded the subjective emotional rating on PANAS, VAD, and amusement-disgust dimensions. In total, the dataset consists of multimodal signal data and self-assessment data from 73 participants. We also present technical validations for emotion induction and mixed emotion classification from physiological signals and face videos. The average accuracy of the 3-class classification (i.e., positive, negative, and mixed) can reach 80.96% when using SVM and features from all modalities, which indicates the possibility of identifying mixed emotional states.

Complex Emotion Dynamics Contribute to the Prediction of Depression: A Machine Learning and Time Series Feature Extraction Approach.

Emotion dynamics have demonstrated mixed ability to predict depressive symptoms and outperform traditional metrics like the mean and standard deviation of emotion reports. Here, we expand the types of emotion dynamic features used in prior work and apply a machine learning algorithm to predict depression symptoms. We obtained seven ecological momentary assessment (EMA) studies from previous work on depression and emotion dynamics (N = 890). These studies measured self-reported sadness, positive affect, and negative affect 5 to 10 times per day for 7 to 21days (schedule varied across studies). These data were fed through a feature extraction routine to generate hundreds of emotion dynamic features. A gradient boosting machine (GBM) using all available emotion dynamics features was the best of all models assessed. This model's out-of-sample prediction (R 2 pred) for depression severity ranged from .20 to .44 depending on EMA interpolation method and samples included in the analysis. It also explained significantly more variance than a benchmark model of individuals' mean emotion ratings over the assessment period, R 2 pred = .089. Comprehensive feature mining of emotion dynamics obtained during EMA may be necessary to identify processes that predict depression symptoms beyond mean emotion ratings.

Digital assessment of cognitive-affective biases related to mental health.

With an increasing societal need for digital therapy solutions for poor mental health, we face a corresponding rise in demand for scientifically validated digital contents. In this study we aimed to lay a sound scientific foundation for the development of brain-based digital therapeutics to assess and monitor cognitive effects of social and emotional bias across diverse populations and age-ranges. First, we developed three computerized cognitive tasks using animated graphics: 1) an emotional flanker task designed to test attentional bias, 2) an emotional go-no-go task to measure bias in memory and executive function, and 3) an emotional social evaluation task to measure sensitivity to social judgments. Then, we confirmed the generalizability of our results in a wide range of samples (children (N = 50), young adults (N = 172), older adults (N = 39), online young adults (N=93), and depression patients (N = 41)) using touchscreen and online computer-based tasks, and devised a spontaneous thought generation task that was strongly associated with, and therefore could potentially serve as an alternative to, self-report scales. Using PCA, we extracted five components that represented different aspects of cognitive-affective function (emotional bias, emotional sensitivity, general accuracy, and general/social attention). Next, a gamified version of the above tasks was developed to test the feasibility of digital cognitive training over a 2-week period. A pilot training study utilizing this application showed decreases in emotional bias in the training group (that were not observed in the control group), which was correlated with a reduction in anxiety symptoms. Using a 2-channel wearable EEG system, we found that frontal alpha and gamma power were associated with both emotional bias and its reduction across the 2-week training period.

The emotion filmmaker: Temporal memory, time-emotion integration, and affective style.

Emotional experiences are temporally dynamic, but prior work suggests that temporal features are usually neglected in remembered emotion. For instance, retrospective emotion evaluations are often biased by discrete salient timepoints, such as the peak and end moments, at the expense of objective event duration (i.e., peak-end effects and duration neglect). However, how these retrospective emotion biases originate, as well as their significance for emotional functioning, remain unclear. Here, we test the hypothesis that retrospective emotion biases are related to fundamental limits of temporal processing and memory capacity. Further, we examine whether these limits have implications for emotional functioning. Participants (n = 60) underwent a novel paradigm comprising affectively-rich movie sequences while providing emotion ratings continuously (moment-by-moment) and retrospectively. Temporal memory for previously watched emotional movie sequences and dispositional negativity were measured. Our findings revealed a greater "end" bias as the duration of emotional-movie sequences increased, suggesting that limitations in temporal processing capacity may contribute to retrospective emotion biases. Critically, temporal-memory errors were associated with larger retrospective emotion biases and with individual differences in dispositional negativity. Collectively, these results indicate that retrospective emotion biases may stem partly from mnemonic temporal errors that are emotionally maladaptive. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

An online supportive music and imagery intervention to promote ICU nurses’ stress management: Preliminary study

Nurses in intensive care units are subjected to high levels of work-related stress and must cope with psychological distress. This preliminary study explored the effects of an online supportive music and imagery intervention on these nurses’ perceived stress, psychological distress, and sleep quality. A prospective pre–post design was employed to investigate the effectiveness of online supportive music and imagery interventions. The intervention comprised five weekly sessions, each lasting 50–60 min, which included verbal interactions and listening to music, and were facilitated by trained music therapists. Perceived stress and psychological distress were measured before and after the five-week program to investigate its effectiveness, and the current stress level and emotional state were measured before and after each session to explore changes over the intervention period. Sleep quality was measured weekly. In total, 29 participants completed the program. The results showed a significant decrease in perceived stress (d = 0.45, p = .045) and psychological distress (d = 0.53, p = .045) after the intervention. Regarding changes over the intervention period, the findings demonstrated a significant main effect of the number of sessions on perceived stress (p = 0.001), energy (p = 0.001), and tension (p = 0.023), whereas the effects on perceived valence and scores on the Korean version of the Insomnia Severity Index were not significant. Moreover, a significant post-session main effect was observed for all perceived stress and emotion ratings (p < 0.001). Online supportive music and imagery interventions may help reduce stress levels and enhance positive emotional states among nurses in intensive care units. Integrating self-work into supportive music imagery interventions may increase adherence to the intervention and extend its effect.

Limitations of Disembodied Computer-Generated Voice to Convey Emotion in Multimedia Lessons

The goal of this study was to determine whether learning processes and outcomes are affected by the emotional tone of the computer-generated voice in a narrated slideshow. In a between-subjects design, participants viewed a narrated slideshow on lightning formation involving a computer-generated female (Experiment 1) or male voice (Experiment 2) that displayed happy, content, angry, or sad emotion. On subsequent surveys and post-tests, students could recognize positive or negative emotions conveyed by the female voice but not the male voice. The emotional tone of the instructor’s voices had minimal impact on students’ ratings of felt emotion during learning, ratings of social connection with the instructor, or scores on retention and transfer tests of learning outcome. The findings highlight the limitations of computer-generated voices to convey emotions that trigger affective, social, and cognitive processes when an onscreen instructor is absent, thereby suggesting a boundary condition for the cognitive-affective model of e-learning.

Emotional contextual effects of face perception: a test of the affective realism hypothesis

Affective feelings naturally infuse individuals’ perceptions, serving as valid windows onto the real world. The affective realism hypothesis further explains how these feelings work: as properties of individuals’ perceptual experiences, these feelings influence perception. Notably, this hypothesis based on affective feelings with different valences has been substantiated, whereas the existing evidence is not compelling enough. Moreover, whether specific affective feelings can be experienced as properties of target perception remains unclear. Addressing these two issues deepens our understanding of the nature of emotional representation. Hence, we investigated the affective realism hypothesis based on affective feelings with different valences and specific emotions, comparing it with the affective misattribution hypothesis. In Experiment 1, we examined the effects of affective feelings with various valences on targets’ perception through the AM (1a) and CFS paradigms (1b). In Experiment 2, we investigated the effects of affective feelings with anger, sadness, and disgust using similar methods. Results from Experiments 1a and 1b consistently indicated significant differences in valence ratings of neutral faces under emotional contexts with varying valences. Experiment 2a revealed significant differences in specific emotion ratings of neutral faces under different specific emotional contexts in the AM paradigm, whereas such differences were not observed in the CFS paradigm in Experiment 2b. We concluded that affective feelings with different valences, rather than specific emotions, can be experienced as inherent properties of target perception, validating the affective realism hypothesis. These findings supported the view that the nature of emotional representation should be described as affective dimensions.

Lexicographic description of vocabulary with a negative emotional evaluation in English-Russian dictionaries

Lexicographic description of vocabulary with a negative emotional evaluation in English-Russian dictionaries

Visual Analysis of Social Media Data on Experiences at a World Heritage Tourist Destination: Historic Centre of Macau

The burgeoning field of sustainable tourism in historically significant urban districts has derived increasing attention in tandem with broader urban economic development. The perceived image of a tourist destination significantly affects tourist consumption behaviors and destination choices, while negative evaluations provide destination managers with insights for targeted improvements to tourist amenities, thereby contributing to the sustainable development of these historically significant districts. This study leveraged Python 3.12.3 software to collect online textual data from popular tourism websites, specifically Ctrip 8.71.4 and Mafengwo 11.1.7. Then, ROST CM6.0 software facilitated high-frequency word analysis, network semantic analysis, and sentiment analysis to outline the perceived image and characteristics of the Macau Historic District, a UNESCO World Heritage site, from the perspective of tourists. The findings are as follows: (1) The image of the Historic Centre of Macao as a tourist destination comprises four primary dimensions: cultural (16.02%), landscape (30.85%), emotional (16.97%), and local (36.16%). (2) Tourists perceive the Historic Centre of Macao as a blend of dynamism and tranquility, tradition, and modernity. (3) Emotional evaluations of the Historic Centre of Macao as a tourist destination are primarily positive (85.45%), whereas negative sentiments constitute 5.76%, with recurring themes pertaining to overcrowding, high prices, a lack of interactive experiences at attractions, excessive commercialization, and insufficient public rest facilities. These findings offer valuable directives for the future planning and development of tourism in Macau, a city recognized for its World Heritage status. (4) In summary, the thematic image of the Historic Centre of Macao can be considered authentic, romantic, and commercialized.

The Role of Early Intact Auditory Experience on the Perception of Spoken Emotions, Comparing Prelingual to Postlingual Cochlear Implant Users.

Cochlear implants (CI) are remarkably effective, but have limitations regarding the transformation of the spectro-temporal fine structures of speech. This may impair processing of spoken emotions, which involves the identification and integration of semantic and prosodic cues. Our previous study found spoken-emotions-processing differences between CI users with postlingual deafness (postlingual CI) and normal hearing (NH) matched controls (age range, 19 to 65 years). Postlingual CI users over-relied on semantic information in incongruent trials (prosody and semantics present different emotions), but rated congruent trials (same emotion) similarly to controls. Postlingual CI's intact early auditory experience may explain this pattern of results. The present study examined whether CI users without intact early auditory experience (prelingual CI) would generally perform worse on spoken emotion processing than NH and postlingual CI users, and whether CI use would affect prosodic processing in both CI groups. First, we compared prelingual CI users with their NH controls. Second, we compared the results of the present study to our previous study (Taitlebaum-Swead et al. 2022; postlingual CI). Fifteen prelingual CI users and 15 NH controls (age range, 18 to 31 years) listened to spoken sentences composed of different combinations (congruent and incongruent) of three discrete emotions (anger, happiness, sadness) and neutrality (performance baseline), presented in prosodic and semantic channels (Test for Rating of Emotions in Speech paradigm). Listeners were asked to rate (six-point scale) the extent to which each of the predefined emotions was conveyed by the sentence as a whole (integration of prosody and semantics), or to focus only on one channel (rating the target emotion [RTE]) and ignore the other (selective attention). In addition, all participants performed standard tests of speech perception. Performance on the Test for Rating of Emotions in Speech was compared with the previous study (postlingual CI). When asked to focus on one channel, semantics or prosody, both CI groups showed a decrease in prosodic RTE (compared with controls), but only the prelingual CI group showed a decrease in semantic RTE. When the task called for channel integration, both groups of CI users used semantic emotional information to a greater extent than their NH controls. Both groups of CI users rated sentences that did not present the target emotion higher than their NH controls, indicating some degree of confusion. However, only the prelingual CI group rated congruent sentences lower than their NH controls, suggesting reduced accumulation of information across channels. For prelingual CI users, individual differences in identification of monosyllabic words were significantly related to semantic identification and semantic-prosodic integration. Taken together with our previous study, we found that the degradation of acoustic information by the CI impairs the processing of prosodic emotions, in both CI user groups. This distortion appears to lead CI users to over-rely on the semantic information when asked to integrate across channels. Early intact auditory exposure among CI users was found to be necessary for the effective identification of semantic emotions, as well as the accumulation of emotional information across the two channels. Results suggest that interventions for spoken-emotion processing should not ignore the onset of hearing loss.