Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T22:32:00.992Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Electrophysiological correlates of emotion word processing in Spanish–English bilinguals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2020

Idaly Vélez-Uribe  and
Mónica Rosselli
Idaly Vélez-Uribe
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University, Davie, FL, USA
Mónica Rosselli*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University, Davie, FL, USA
*
Address for correspondence: Mónica Rosselli, E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We examined how proficiency influences the processing of emotion words in Spanish–English bilinguals (22 balanced and 20 unbalanced). All unbalanced bilinguals were more proficient in English than Spanish. Participants rated the valence of negative, neutral, and positive words in both languages while EEG was being recorded. ERP latencies and amplitudes were analyzed for two components. The language effect was significant on the late positive component (LPC) amplitude, which was larger for emotion than for neutral words for both groups in English. The unbalanced group presented larger LPC amplitudes for positive than for neutral and for neutral than for negative words in Spanish, suggesting emotion processing differences in these participants’ less proficient language. Valence effects were consistent across languages for the balanced group, but not for the unbalanced group, perhaps reflecting differences in reactivity to emotion words in the less proficient language.

Keywords

bilingualismSpanish–Englishemotionslanguage proficiencyEEGERPs
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 31 - 55
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Altarriba, J (2008) Expressions of emotions as mediated by context. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 11(2), 165–167. doi:10.1017/S1366728908003295CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Altarriba, J and Basnight-Brown, DM (2011) The representation of emotion vs. emotion-laden words in English and Spanish in the affective Simon task. International Journal of Bilingualism, doi:10.1177/1367006910379261CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andrade, J, Kemps, E, Werniers, Y, May, J and Szmalec, A (2002) Insensitivity of visual short-term memory to irrelevant visual information. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Section A 55(3), 753–774.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Anooshian, LJ and Hertel, PT (1994) Emotionality in free recall: Language specificity in bilingual memory. Cognition and Emotion 8(6), 503–514. doi:10.1080/02699939408408956CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ayçiçeği, A and Harris, CL (2004) Brief report: Bilinguals' recall and recognition of emotion words. Cognition and Emotion 18(7), 977–987. doi:10.1080/02699930341000301CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ayçiçeği-Dinn, A and Caldwell-Harris, C (2009) Emotion-memory effects in bilingual speakers: A levels-of-processing approach. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 12(3), 291–303. doi:10.1017/S1366728909990125CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bond, MH and Lai, T (1986) Embarrassment and code-switching into a second language. The Journal of Social Psychology 126(2), 179–186.Google Scholar
Bradley, MM & Lang, PJ (1994) Measuring emotion: The self-assessment manikin and the semantic differential. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry 25(1), 49–59. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.fau.edu/10.1016/0005-7916(94)90063-9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bradley, MM and Lang, PJ (1999) Affective norms for English words (ANEW): Instruction manual and affective ratings. (No. C-1). University of Florida: The Center for Research in Psychophysiology.Google Scholar
Caldwell-Harris, C and Ayçiçeği-Dinn, A (2009) Emotion and lying in a non-native language. International Journal of Psychophysiology 71(3), 193–204. doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2008.09.006CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chen, P, Lin, J, Chen, B, Lu, C and Guo, T (2015) Processing emotional words in two languages with one brain: ERP and fMRI evidence from Chinese–English bilinguals. Cortex 71, 34–48.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Citron, FM (2012) Neural correlates of written emotion word processing: a review of recent electrophysiological and hemodynamic neuroimaging studies. Brain and Language 122(3), 211–226.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Colbeck, KL and Bowers, JS (2012) Blinded by taboo words in L1 but not L2. Emotion 12(2), 217–222. doi:10.1037/a0026387.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conrad, M, Recio, G and Jacobs, AM (2011) The time course of emotion effects in first and second language processing: A cross-cultural ERP study with German–Spanish bilinguals. Frontiers in Psychology 2, 351. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00351; 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00351CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dewaele, J (2004) The emotional force of swearwords and taboo words in the speech of multilinguals. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 25(2–3), 204–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewaele, J (2008) The emotional weight of “I love you” in multilinguals’ languages. Journal of Pragmatics 40(10), 1753–1780.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewaele, J and Pavlenko, A (2001) Web questionnaire bilingualism and emotions. University of London.Google Scholar
Eilola, TM, Havelka, J and Sharma, D (2007) Emotional activation in the first and second language. Cognition and Emotion 21(5), 1064–1076. doi:10.1080/02699930601054109CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferré, P, García, T, Fraga, I, Sánchez-Casas, R and Molero, M (2010) Memory for emotional words in bilinguals: Do words have the same emotional intensity in the first and in the second language? Cognition and Emotion 24(5), 760–785.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischler, I and Bradley, M (2006) Event-related potential studies of language and emotion: words, phrases, and task effects. Progress in Brain Research 156, 185–203.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gollan, TH, Salmon, DP, Montoya, RI and Galasko, DR (2011) Degree of bilingualism predicts age of diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease in low-education but not in highly educated Hispanics. Neuropsychologia 49(14), 3826–3830.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hajcak, G, Weinberg, A, MacNamara, A and Foti, D (2012) ERPs and the study of emotion. The Oxford handbook of event-related potential components 441, 474.Google Scholar
Harris, CL (2004) Bilingual speakers in the lab: Psychophysiological measures of emotional reactivity. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 25(2–3), 223–247.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, CL, Ayçiçeği, A and Gleason, JB (2003) Taboo words and reprimands elicit greater autonomic reactivity in a first language than in a second language. Applied Psycholinguistics 24(04), 561. doi:10.1017/S0142716403000286CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herbert, C, Junghöfer, M and Kissler, J (2008) Event related potentials to emotional adjectives during reading. Psychophysiology 45(3), 487–498.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hinojosa, JA, Carretié, L, Valcárcel, MA, Méndez-Bértolo, C and Pozo, MA (2009) Electrophysiological differences in the processing of affective information in words and pictures. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience 9(2), 173–189.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Houlihan, M, Stelmack, R and Campbell, K (1998) Intelligence and the effects of perceptual processing demands, task difficulty and processing speed on P300, reaction time and movement time. Intelligence 26(1), 9–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kazanas, SA and Altarriba, J (2015) The automatic activation of emotion and emotion-laden words: Evidence from a masked and unmasked priming paradigm. The American journal of psychology 128(3), 323–336.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kazanas, SA and Altarriba, J (2016) Emotion word processing: Effects of word type and valence in Spanish–English bilinguals. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 45(2), 395–406.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kim, MS (1993) The effects of emotional connotations of English words on event-related potentials (ERPs) in Korean–English bilinguals and English-speaking monolinguals (Doctoral dissertation, University of Georgia).Google Scholar
Knickerbocker, H and Altarriba, J (2013) Differential repetition blindness with emotion and emotion-laden word types. Visual Cognition 21(5), 599–627.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luck, SJ (2014) An introduction to the event-related potential technique. MIT press.Google Scholar
Marian, V, Blumenfeld, HK and Kaushanskaya, M (2007) The language experience and proficiency questionnaire (LEAP-Q): Assessing language profiles in bilinguals and multilinguals. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research 50(4), 940.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Martin, JM and Altarriba, J (2017) Effects of valence on hemispheric specialization for emotion word processing. Language and Speech 60(4), 597–613.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morris, JD (1995) Observations: SAM: The self-assessment manikin; an efficient cross-cultural measurement of emotional response. Journal of Advertising Research 35, 63–68.Google Scholar
Opitz, B and Degner, J (2012) Emotionality in a second language: It's a matter of time. Neuropsychologia 50(8), 1961–1967. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.04.021CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palazova, M, Mantwill, K, Sommer, W and Schacht, A (2011) Are effects of emotion in single words non-lexical? Evidence from event-related brain potentials. Neuropsychologia 49(9), 2766–2775.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pavlenko, A (2007) Emotions and multilingualism. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pavlenko, A (2008) Emotion and emotion-laden words in the bilingual lexicon. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 11(2), 147–164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pavlenko, A (2012) Affective processing in bilingual speakers: Disembodied Cognition? International Journal of Psychology 47(6), 405–428. doi:10.1080/00207594.2012.743665CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ponari, M, Rodríguez-Cuadrado, S, Vinson, D, Fox, N, Costa, A and Vigliocco, G (2015) Processing advantage for emotional words in bilingual speakers. Emotion 15(5), 644.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Psychology Software Tools, Inc. [E-Prime 2.0]. (2012)Google Scholar
Redondo, J, Fraga, I, Padrón, I and Comesaña, M (2007) The Spanish adaptation of ANEW (affective norms for English words). Behavior Research Methods 39(3), 600–605. doi:10.3758/BF03193031CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosselli, M, Loewenstein, DA, Curiel, RE, Penate, A, Torres, VL, Lang, M, Duara, R (2019) Effects of bilingualism on verbal and nonverbal memory measures in Mild Cognitive Impairment. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society: JINS 25(1), 15–28.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rosselli, M, Vélez-Uribe, I and Ardila, A (2017) Emotional Associations of Words in L1 and L2 in Bilinguals. In: Ardila, A, Cieślicka, AB, Heredia, RR and Rosselli, M (eds), Psychology of Bilingualism: The Cognitive World of Bilinguals. Springer's Bilingual Mind and Brain Book Series.Google Scholar
Scott, GG, O'Donnell, PJ, Leuthold, H and Sereno, SC (2009) Early emotion word processing: Evidence from event-related potentials. Biological Psychology 80(1), 95–104.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sharbrough, F (1991) American Electroencephalographic Society guidelines for standard electrode position nomenclature. Journal of Clinical Neurophysiology 8, 200–202.Google Scholar
Sutton, TM, Altarriba, J, Gianico, JL and Basnight-Brown, D (2007) The automatic access of emotion: Emotional Stroop effects in Spanish–English bilingual speakers. Cognition and Emotion 21(5), 1077–1090. doi:10.1080/02699930601054133CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vélez-Uribe, I and Rosselli, M (2017) The Auditory and Visual Appraisal of Emotionally Loaded Words in Spanish/English Bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1–17.Google Scholar
Vinson, D, Ponari, M and Vigliocco, G (2014) How does emotional content affect lexical processing? Cognition & emotion 28(4), 737–746.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wang, X, Shangguan, C and Lu, J (2019) Time course of emotion effects during emotion-label and emotion-laden word processing. Neuroscience Letters 699, 1–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weinberg, A and Hajcak, G (2010) Beyond good and evil: The time-course of neural activity elicited by specific picture content. Emotion 10(6), 767.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yang, CL, Perfetti, CA, Tan, LH and Jiang, Y (2018) ERP Indicators of L2 Proficiency in Word-to-text Integration Processes. Neuropsychologia.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, J, Teo, T and Wu, C (2018) Emotion Words Modulate Early Conflict Processing in a Flanker Task: Differentiating Emotion-Label Words and Emotion-Laden Words in Second Language. Language and Speech, 0023830918807509.Google Scholar
Zhang, J, Wu, C, Meng, Y and Yuan, Z (2017) Different neural correlates of emotion-label words and emotion-laden words: An ERP study. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 11, 455.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, J, Wu, C, Yuan, Z and Meng, Y (2019) Differentiating emotion-label words and emotion-laden words in emotion conflict: an ERP study. Experimental Brain Research 237(9), 2423–2430.CrossRefGoogle Scholar