title: Reading emotional words within sentences: the impact of arousal and valence on event-related potentials.
abstract: Effects of emotional word meaning have been studied exclusively for words in isolation but not in the context of sentences. We addressed this question within the framework of two-dimensional models of affect, conceiving emotion as a function of valence and arousal. Negative and neutral target verbs, embedded within sentences, were presented while event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and the activity of the Corrugator muscle were recorded. Twenty-one participants performed a semantic decision task on the target verbs. In contrast to single word studies no early posterior negativity was present. However, emotion effects in ERPs were evident in a late positive complex (LPC) for negative, high-arousal words in comparison to neutral words. Interestingly, the LPC was unaffected by pure arousal variation when valence was controlled for, indicating the importance of valence for this emotion-related ERP effect.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin, Germany. mareike.bayer@hu-berlin.de
authors.forename: Mareike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bayer
authors.forename: Werner
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Sommer
authors.forename: Annekathrin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schacht
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D003265:Contingent Negative Variation / Q000502:physiology; D004576:Electromyography; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005152:Facial Muscles / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D055815:Young Adult