Processing of pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral words in a lateralised emotional Stroop task

Abstract

According to the valence hypothesis, pleasant and unpleasant stimuli are mainly processed in the left and in the right hemisphere, respectively. To elucidate whether this reflects lateralised attentional processes, a lateralised Emotional Stroop Task was administered: Pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral words were presented to 63 male and 62 female students in four colours for 150 ms in either the left or the right visual half field. Pleasant words presented in the right (compared to the left) and unpleasant and neutral words presented in the left (compared to the right) visual field had longer latencies. Thus, attentional processes seem to be lateralised, depending on the hedonic tone of the stimuli. Predictions on personality differences in lateralised attentional processes were not confirmed.

Acknowledgments

The research reported in this article was supported by a grant from Deutsche For-schungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) to Peter Borkenau. The authors are indebted to Bernd Leplow for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.