Emotion processing in concrete and abstract words: evidence from eye fixations during reading

Figures & data

Table 1. Word stimuli.

	Abstract			Concrete
Negative	Neutral	Positive	Negative	Neutral	Positive
risk	stay	wish	fire	list	cash
fear	duty	trust	bomb	path	gold
danger	method	belief	battle	winter	castle
suffer	affect	create	murder	mirror	dinner
curse	mood	luck	storm	jury	silk
fierce	subtle	honest	weapon	liquid	flower
chaos	array	bonus	crash	canal	ocean
evil	mild	bold	riot	horn	toys
cruel	overt	brave	flood	cliff	movie
hostile	passive	sincere	robbery	stadium	rainbow
scared	casual	playful	poison	basket	balloon
agony	irony	glory	snake	arrow	bunny
shocking	reserved	fabulous	massacre	calendar	treasure
atrocious	abstract	exquisite	terrorist	mechanic	butterfly
irritating	conceptual	sensational	earthquake	technician	millionaire
punish	oblige	admire	bullet	sponge	jewels
deceive	convert	refresh	shotgun	luggage	bouquet
manic	tame	cosy	shark	mast	pearl
obscenity	deviation	gratitude	tarantula	container	limousine
insanity	deduction	devotion	assassin	wrestling	comedian
malice	satire	valour	dagger	crater	kitten
paranoid	thrifty	graceful	scorpion	herring	ladybird

Table 2. Means (with SDs) of target word specifications across conditions.

	Abstract			Concrete
	Negative	Neutral	Positive	Negative	Neutral	Positive
N	22	22	22	22	22	22
Valence	2.35 (0.66)	5.21 (0.48)	7.46 (0.49)	2.55 (0.81)	5.08 (0.51)	6.91 (0.50)
|Valence|	3.65 (0.66)	1.44 (0.26)	3.46 (0.49)	3.45 (0.81)	1.41 (0.31)	2.91 (0.50)
Concreteness	2.84 (0.34)	2.70 (0.43)	2.73 (0.39)	6.01 (0.65)	6.07 (0.41)	6.24 (0.42)
Frequency	22.00 (33.31)	25.92 (32.81)	24.91 (34.43)	21.33 (31.61)	22.62 (30.53)	20.52 (26.62)
Log frequency	0.97 (0.57)	1.12 (0.54)	1.04 (0.61)	0.98 (0.59)	1.09 (0.47)	0.90 (0.81)
Length	6.32 (1.73)	6.18 (1.79)	6.36 (1.89)	6.32 (1.73)	6.18 (1.79)	6.36 (1.89)
Arousal	5.67 (0.66)	4.15 (0.68)	5.91 (0.71)	5.76 (0.71)	3.91 (0.70)	5.70 (0.68)
Familiarity	5.29 (0.56)	4.95 (0.85)	5.47 (0.78)	5.19 (0.54)	5.35 (0.84)	5.79 (0.53)
AoA	4.43 (1.13)	5.16 (1.08)	4.15 (1.18)	3.83 (0.96)	3.61 (1.02)	2.88 (1.00)
Imageability	3.67 (0.71)	2.71 (0.42)	3.46 (0.61)	6.14 (0.57)	6.13 (0.38)	6.41 (0.39)

Note. Units of measures are as follows: Valence on a scale from 1 (very negative) to 5 (neutral) to 9 (very positive); |Valence| = abs(valence-5) + 1, ranging from 1 (neutral) to 5 (highly valenced); Concreteness on a scale from 1 (very abstract) to 7 (very concrete); Frequency in occurrences per million; Length in number of letters; Arousal on a scale from 1 (very unarousing) to 9 (very arousing); Familiarity on a scale from 1 (very unfamiliar) to 7 (very familiar); AoA (age of acquisition) on a scale from 1 to 7 (ages 0–2, 3–4, 5–6, 7–8, 9–10, 11–12, and 13+ years, respectively); and Imageability on a scale from 1 (very unimageable) to 7 (very imageable).

Table 3. Example stimulus set.

Condition		Targets	Sentence frames
Abstract	Negative	shocking	The crime novel detailed how ____ the affair had been.
	Neutral	reserved	Bethany’s remarks were ____ and helped promote their cause.
	Positive	fabulous	The model’s new look was ____ as she strode down the catwalk.
Concrete	Negative	massacre	It turned out that information on the ____ had been fabricated.
	Neutral	calendar	Scholars continue to study the Chinese ____ and its history.
	Positive	treasure	The origin of the ancient ____ is still a mystery.

Note. One set of the 22 sets of length- and frequency-matched Abstract and Concrete Negative, Neutral, and Positive target words is presented. Separate sets of sentence frames were constructed for Abstract and Concrete targets. The “___” designates where one of the target words would appear. Any of the Abstract sentence frames could accommodate any of the Abstract targets; any of the Concrete sentence frames could accommodate any of the Concrete targets. Three versions of the materials were designed, presented to three different participant groups. In this way, all participants read all targets and all sentence frames, only the mapping between target and sentence frame differed across the three participant groups.

Table 4. GLMM coefficients for fixed effects of Emotion, Concreteness, and their interactions by fixation duration measures.

	FFD	SFD	GD
Intercept	***222.5	***225.7	***262.7
Emo	*−4.6	*−5.4	***−10.4
CNC	***−8.9	***−9.3	**−10.2
Emo × CNC	**−8.8	−8.5	***−13.6
Covar: Log frequency	***−5.4	***−7.7	***−25.5
Covar: Familiarity	***−8.0	***−7.5	0.0
Covar: AoA	−1.1	−1.9	*5.0
Covar: Arousal	**6.4	**7.3	***30.5

Note: Emo = Emotion (absolute valence); CNC = Concreteness; Covar = Covariate; AoA = age of acquisition; FFD = first fixation duration; SFD = single fixation duration; GD = gaze duration. Significant effects are highlighted in bold, with significance levels indicated by asterisks: ***p < .001, **p < .01, *p < .05; marginal effects are highlighted in italics.

Table 5. GLMM coefficients for fixed effects of Emotion, Concreteness, Imageability, and their interactions by fixation duration measures.

	FFD	SFD	GD
Intercept	***226.2	***230.9	***257.7
Emo	***−9.6	***−10.9	**−10.0
IMAG	***−11.0	***−11.4	***−13.8
Emo × IMAG	**−8.7	*−7.6	***−19.2
CNC × IMAG	***−12.8	***−18.9	***24.3
Emo × CNC × IMAG	***16.8	***16.6	7.8
Covar: Log frequency	***−6.0	***−8.5	***−25.0
Covar: Familiarity	***−9.1	***−8.8	0.1
Covar: AoA	*4.2	*5.2	***29.0
Covar: Arousal	0.5	0.0	*5.6

Note: Emo = Emotion (absolute valence); CNC = Concreteness; IMAG = Imageability; Covar = Covariate; AoA = age of acquisition; FFD = first fixation duration; SFD = single fixation duration; GD = gaze duration. Significant effects are highlighted in bold, with significance levels indicated by asterisks: ***p < .001, **p < .01, *p < .05; marginal effects are highlighted in italics.

Table 6. GLMM coefficients for Emotion × Imageability by fixation duration measures in Abstract and Concrete words.

	Abstract			Concrete
	FFD	SFD	GD	FFD	SFD	GD
Intercept	***232.0	***236.4	***277.2	***216.2	***219.3	***250.9
Emo	−4.8	*−7.7	1.3	**−8.7	**−9.6	**−14.6
IMAG	3.5	*7.9	−9.6	*−7.3	*−8.1	*−11.3
Emo × IMAG	***−21.1	***−27.3	−16.8	−6.4	−6.2	−5.6
Covar: Log frequency	**−8.4	**−8.0	***−19.1	−3.0	*−5.8	***−30.2
Covar: Familiarity	*−6.5	*−8.2	0.2	***−12.2	***−12.0	−1.4
Covar: AoA	**7.5	**9.3	***35.6	−2.5	−1.7	**11.9
Covar: Arousal	−3.5	−4.6	6.1	1.4	1.4	6.1

Note: Emo = Emotion (absolute valence); IMAG = Imageability; Covar = Covariate; AoA = age of acquisition; FFD = first fixation duration; SFD = single fixation duration; GD = gaze duration. Significant effects are highlighted in bold, with significance levels indicated by asterisks: ***p < .001, **p < .01, *p < .05; marginal effects are highlighted in italics.

Figure 1. Effects (coefficients) of Emotion by Imageability across fixation measures in Abstract and Concrete words. Panel A = Abstract Words; Panel B = Concrete Words. The points in the graph represent the coefficients (slopes) of the Emotion effects (difference between emotional and neutral words) in milliseconds. Error bars around the points depict the 95% confidence intervals for these coefficients. The horizontal dashed lines represent a zero effect. If the errors bars cross this line, it indicates that the Emotion effects at that specific level of Imageability are not significantly different from zero.

Data availability

The data and analysis code and output are shared on the Open Science Framework server: https://osf.io/zcb8f/.