Affective processing within 1/10th of a second: High arousal is necessary for early facilitative processing of negative but not positive words

Lexical decisions to high- and low-arousal negative words and to low-arousal neutral and positive words were examined in an event-related potentials (ERP) study. Reaction times to positive and high-arousal negative words were shorter than those to neutral (low-arousal) words, whereas those to low-ar...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cognitive, affective, & behavioral neuroscience affective, & behavioral neuroscience, 2009-12, Vol.9 (4), p.389-397
Main Authors: Hofmann, Markus J., Kuchinke, Lars, Tamm, Sascha, Võ, Melissa L. H., Jacobs, Arthur M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Analysis of Variance
Anatomical correlates of behavior
Arousal - physiology
Audiometry, Evoked Response
Behavioral psychophysiology
Behavioral Science and Psychology
Biological and medical sciences
Brain - physiology
Brain Mapping
Choice Behavior - physiology
Cognitive Psychology
Electrophysiology
Emotions
Emotions - physiology
Evoked Potentials, Visual - physiology
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
Language
Localization
Male
Neurosciences
Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology
Photic Stimulation
Production and perception of written language
Psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
Reaction Time - physiology
Semantics
Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted
Word processing
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Summary:Lexical decisions to high- and low-arousal negative words and to low-arousal neutral and positive words were examined in an event-related potentials (ERP) study. Reaction times to positive and high-arousal negative words were shorter than those to neutral (low-arousal) words, whereas those to low-arousal negative words were longer. A similar pattern was observed in an early time window of the ERP response: Both positive and high-arousal negative words elicited greater negative potentials in a time frame of 80 to 120 msec after stimulus onset. This result suggests that arousal has a differential impact on early lexical processing of positive and negative words. Source localization in the relevant time frame revealed that the arousal effect in negative words is likely to be localized in a left occipito-temporal region including the middle temporal and fusiform gyri. The ERP arousal effect appears to result from early lexico-semantic processing in high-arousal negative words.
ISSN:1530-7026
1531-135X
DOI:10.3758/9.4.389