An ERP investigation on the second language and emotion perception: the role of emotion word type

ABSTRACT

It is well established that emotion is extensively influenced by language. However, previous studies mainly focus on the first language (L1) rather than the second language (L2). The current study explored whether L2 shapes emotion perception in masked priming paradigm by distinguishing emotion-label words (e.g. fear, pride) and emotion-laden words (e.g. breakup, mother). Twenty-three Chinese-English bilinguals were instructed to judge the valence of the emotional pictures that were followed by masked and briefly presented L2 emotion words. Behavioral results showed that emotional pictures primed by negative emotion-label words were processed faster and more accurate than primed by emotion-laden words. Event-related potential results further revealed that emotional pictures elicited smaller N300 primed by negative emotion-label words than by emotion-laden words. The converging evidence suggests that second language can also modulate emotion perception fast and automatically, and such modulation is dependent on emotion word type.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotion-label words
• emotion-laden words
• emotional picture
• valence
• second language

Acknowledgement

This work has been submitted in partial fulfillment of the Ph.D. degree in Education by the first author.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Universidade de Macau [grant numbers MYRG2015-00221-FED, MYRG2016-00193-FED, MYRG2017-00217-FED].

Notes on contributors

Chenggang Wu

Chenggang Wu (Ph.D. in Education) is currently working as a research assistant in Center for Cognitive and Brain Sciences. His research interests are bilingual visual word recognition, emotionality in mental lexicon, and reading and literacy development.

Juan Zhang

Juan Zhang (Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology) is Associate Professor from Faculty of Education in the University of Macau. Her research interests are reading and literacy development, bilingualism, and cognitive neuroscience.

Zhen Yuan

Zhen Yuan (Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering) is Associate Professor from Faculty of Health Sciences in the University of Macau, and he conducted numerous studies on neuroimaging, brain disorders, and brain cognition.