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GlasgowGlasgowLanguageLanguageProcessingProcessing

Emotion Word Processing:Emotion Word Processing:Evidence From Eye MovementsEvidence From Eye Movements

Graham G. Scott, Patrick J. O’Donnell, & Sara C. SerenoGraham G. Scott, Patrick J. O’Donnell, & Sara C. Sereno

University of GlasgowUniversity of Glasgow

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References & AcknowledgementsBradley, M.M., & Lang, P.J. (1999). Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW). The NIMH Center for the Study of Emotion and Attention, University of Florida.British National Corpus (1995). http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk.Nakic, M., Smith, B.W., Busis, S., Vythilingam, M., & Blair, R.J.R. (2006). The impact of affect and frequency on lexical decision: The role of the amygdala and

inferior frontal cortex. NeuroImage, 31, 1752-1761.Scott, G.G., O’Donnell, P.J., Leuthold, H., & Sereno, S.C. (2006, August). Emotion word processing: Behavioural and electrophysiological evidence. Poster presented

at the Aruchitectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP) meeting, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.Taylor, S.E. (1991). Asymmetrical effects of positive and negative events: The mobilization-minimization hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin, 110, 67-85.Taylor, J.G., & Fragopanagos, N.F. (2005). The interaction of attention and emotion. Neural Networks, 18, 353-369.

This work was conducted as partial fulfilment of a PhD at the Univ of Glasgow for G.G. Scott, funded by an ESRC postgraduate fellowship. Corresponding author: [email protected].

Discussion• Significant Frequency x Emotion interactions occurred in first fixation and gaze duration measures.

• Results seem to favour a perceptual defence based theory, such as Taylor’s (1991) Mobilisation- Minimisation hypothesis:

- For LF words, high arousal words (positive & negative) are processed more easily than neutral words.- For HF positive words, high arousal levels facilitate processing without any cost incurred from their

highly activated (i.e., HF) positive valence.- For HF negative words, initial processing facilitation is offset by the disruptive effects of highly

activated (i.e., HF) negative valence.

• These data suggest that an early identification of the emotional tone of words leads to differential processing. Specifically, HF negative words seem to attract additional cognitive resources.

• This is consistent with a time-line in which emotional quality either accompanies or precedes (but does not follow) lexical access (Taylor & Fragopanogos, 2005).

Results: Gaze Duration

• Main effect of Frequency (p<0.001).

• Main Effect of Emotion (p<0.01).

• Significant Interaction (p<0.001).

For LF words:

Negative < Positive < Neutral

For HF words:

Positive < Negative = Neutral

Gaze Duration

280

290

300

310

320

330

340

350

LF HF

Frequency

Fix

atio

n D

ura

tio

n (

ms

)

Pos

Neut

Neg

Results: First Fixation Duration


• Main effect of Emotion (p<0.05).


For LF words:

Negative < Neutral

Positive < Neutral; Positive > Negative

For HF words:


First Fixation Duration

260

270

280

290

300

LF HF

Frequency

Fix

atio

n D

ura

tio

n (

ms)

Pos

Neut

Neg

Materials & Design• 2 x 3 within-subject design: Frequency (LF, HF) x Word Type (Pos, Neut, Neg).

• Word type was defined by arousal and valence ratings:

Arousal Valence Frequency Length (lo-hi, 1-9) (neg-pos, 1-9) (#per mill) (characters) Example

LF Pos 6.7 7.6 8 7 valentine Neut 4.5 5.2 7 7 appliance Neg 6.6 2.4 7 7 suffocate

HF Pos 6.6 7.8 62 6 exercise Neut 4.3 5.2 67 6 village Neg 6.7 2.6 50 6 accident

Note: Word frequency values: British National Corpus (BNC).Arousal and valence ratings: Affective Norms of English Words (ANEW) (Bradley &

Lang, 1999)

• 15 words of each type (LF-Pos, LF-Neut, LF-Neg, HF-Pos, HF-Neut, HF-Neg) → total 90 words;

matched for frequency, length, number of syllables, syntactic category.

• 30 sentence triples to accommodate target word triples. Each subject read each target in different sentence

frames. 3 subject groups, so that each target was viewed in all 3 sentence frames.

Sentence frame kiss news bomb

1 Phoebe discussed the _____ at great length with her friends.

2 Michelle dreamt about the _____ every night for weeks.

3 Tom delivered the _____ with great care and attention.

IntroductionOnly 2 studies have investigated the interaction of emotionality and word frequency.

• Nakic et al. (2006) carried out a lexical decision task (LDT) using a 2x3 design manipulating word frequency (high and low, HF & LF) and word emotionality (‘highly’ negative, ‘mildly’ negative, and neutral). They found main effects of frequency (HF<LF) and emotion (highly negative < mildly negative < neutral), but no interaction.

• Scott et al. (2006) carried out an LDT using a 2x3 design to investigate word frequency (HF, LF) and emotion (positive, negative, neutral) and found main effects as well as an interaction:

The present study

• Replicate and extend the results of Scott et al. (2006) in the context of normal reading.

• Specifically, record subjects eye movements as they read high and low frequency positive, negative and neutral targets presented in neutral sentences.


• Main effect of Emotion (p<0.001).


For LF words:

Positive = Negative <

Neutral

For HF words:


RT: Emotion x Frequency

490

500

510

520

530

540

550

560

570

580

590

LF HF

Frequency

RT

(m

s) Pos

Neut

Neg

MethodParticipants

44 native English speakers with normal vision who were not diagnosed as dyslexic.

Apparatus

Fourward Technologies Generation 5.5 Dual-Purkinje Eyetracker.

Procedure

Participants read single-line sentences while their eye movements were monitored.

Y/N comprehension questions followed sentences on half the trials.

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