The N400 indexes acquisition of novel emotion concepts via conceptual combination

• Published in: Psychophysiology 2021-02, Vol.58 (2), p.e13727-n/a
• Main Authors: Hoemann, Katie, Hartley, Ludger, Watanabe, Akira, Solana Leon, Estefania, Katsumi, Yuta, Barrett, Lisa Feldman, Quigley, Karen S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Concept Formation - physiology; Electroencephalography; emotion; Emotions - physiology; ERPs; Event-related potentials; Evoked Potentials - physiology; Fatigue; Female; Humans; language/speech; learning; Learning - physiology; Male; Psycholinguistics; semantic memory; Semantics; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0048-5772; 1469-8986; 1540-5958
• DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13727

The ability to learn new emotion concepts is adaptive and socially valuable as it communicates culturally held understandings about values, goals, and experiences. Yet, little work has examined the underlying mechanisms that allow for new emotion concepts and words to be integrated into the conceptual system. One such mechanism may be conceptual combination, or the ability to form novel concepts by dynamically combining previously acquired conceptual knowledge. In this study, we used event‐related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the electrophysiological correlates of novel emotion concept acquisition via conceptual combination. Participants were briefly trained on 30 novel emotion combinations, each consisting of two English emotion words (the components; e.g., “sadness + fatigue”) and a pseudoword (the target; e.g., “despip”). Participants then completed a semantic congruency task while ERPs were recorded. On each trial, two components were presented serially, followed by a target; participants judged whether the target was a valid combination of the preceding components. Targets could be correct or incorrect trained pseudowords, or new untrained pseudowords. Furthermore, components could be presented in reversed order (e.g., “fatigue” then “sadness”) or as synonyms (e.g., “exhaustion” for “fatigue”). Consistent with our main hypotheses, we found a main effect of target, such that the correct combinations showed reduced N400 amplitudes when compared to both incorrect and untrained pseudowords. Critically, this effect held regardless of how the preceding components were presented, suggesting deeper semantic learning. These results extend prior findings on conceptual combination and novel word learning, and are congruent with predictive processing accounts of brain function. Brief exposure to novel emotion combinations resulted in N400 effects suggestive of deeper semantic learning, shedding light on conceptual combination as an underlying mechanism supporting emotion concept acquisition. These findings are consistent with predictive processing accounts of brain function and have implications for the improvement of emotional health and well‐being.