Author, as appears in the article.: Ferré P; Haro J; Huete-Pérez D; Fraga I
Department: Psicologia
URV's Author/s: Ferré Romeu, Maria Pilar / Haro Rodriguez, Juan / Huete Pérez, Daniel
Keywords: Visual word recognition Valence Lexical decision task Emotionality effect Ambiguous words visual word recognition valence lexical decision task emotionality effect
Abstract: There is substantial evidence that affectively charged words (e.g., party or gun) are processed differently from neutral words (e.g., pen), although there are also inconsistent findings in the field. Some lexical or semantic variables might explain such inconsistencies, due to the possible modulation of affective word processing by these variables. The aim of the present study was to examine the extent to which affective word processing is modulated by semantic ambiguity. We conducted a large lexical decision study including semantically ambiguous words (e.g., cataract) and semantically unambiguous words (e.g., terrorism), analysing the extent to which reaction times (RTs) were influenced by their affective properties. The findings revealed a valence effect in which positive valence made RTs faster, whereas negative valence slowed them. The valence effect diminished as the semantic ambiguity of words increased. This decrease did not affect all ambiguous words, but was observed mainly in ambiguous words with incongruent affective meanings. These results highlight the need to consider the affective properties of the distinct meanings of ambiguous words in research on affective word processing.
Thematic Areas: Psychology, experimental Psychology (miscellaneous) Psychology (all) Psychology Psicología Physiology (medical) Physiology Neuropsychology and physiological psychology Medicine (miscellaneous) General psychology General medicine Experimental and cognitive psychology Ciencias sociales
licence for use: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/
Author's mail: daniel.huete@urv.cat daniel.huete@urv.cat mariadelpilar.ferre@urv.cat juan.haro@urv.cat
Author identifier: 0000-0001-8851-963X 0000-0001-8851-963X 0000-0002-3192-0040 0000-0002-3456-4731
Record's date: 2024-07-27
Papper version: info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion
Link to the original source: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1747021821990003
Licence document URL: https://repositori.urv.cat/ca/proteccio-de-dades/
Papper original source: Quarterly Journal Of Experimental Psychology. 74 (7): 1234-1243
APA: Ferré P; Haro J; Huete-Pérez D; Fraga I (2021). Emotionality effects in ambiguous word recognition: The crucial role of the affective congruence between distinct meanings of ambiguous words. Quarterly Journal Of Experimental Psychology, 74(7), 1234-1243. DOI: 10.1177/1747021821990003
Article's DOI: 10.1177/1747021821990003
Entity: Universitat Rovira i Virgili
Journal publication year: 2021
Publication Type: Journal Publications