The neural mechanisms of explicit and implicit processing of Chinese emotion-label and emotion-laden words: evidence from emotional categorisation and emotional Stroop tasks

ABSTRACT

This study set out to examine the valence effect on the explicit and implicit processing of Chinese emotion-label and emotion-laden words with emotional categorisation task (ECT) and emotional Stroop task (EST). Behaviourally, the dissociation between emotion-label and emotion-laden words was only observed in the ECT and was modulated by valence. Neurophysiologically, a negative bias was found in the early perceptual processing stage (N170). In the second processing stage, the dissociation between emotion-label and emotion-laden words was modulated by valence (P2 and EPN). In the elaborate processing stage, the neural dissociation between emotion-label and emotion-laden words was modulated by the processing level (frontal N400 and early LPC). Valence interacted with processing level (late LPC). This study verifies the three-stage model of emotional word processing and extends it by adding two factors—processing level and emotional word type—into the model.

KEYWORDS:

• Valence
• emotion-label words
• emotion-laden words
• emotional categorisation task
• emotional Stroop task
• ERP

Acknowledgements

We thank Professor Jinhong Ding for advice regarding methodology and Dr. Jiaxing Jiang for assistance in data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the First-class Disciplines Project of Beijing Foreign Studies University: [Grant Number 2022SYLZD008].