title: The Automatic Activation of Emotion and Emotion-Laden Words: Evidence from a Masked and Unmasked Priming Paradigm.
abstract: A primed lexical decision task (LDT) was used to determine whether emotion (e.g., love, fear) and emotion-laden (e.g., puppy, hospital) word processing differs, both explicitly and implicitly. Previous experiments have investigated how emotion word processing differs from both abstract and concrete word processing (Altarriba & Bauer, 2004; Altarriba, Bauer, & Benvenuto, 1999). To assess for differences between emotion and emotion-laden word processing, 2 experiments were conducted, the first assessing explicit processing (using an unmasked LDT) and the second assessing automatic processing (using a masked LDT). The prediction that semantic priming would differ between emotion word pairs and emotion-laden word pairs was confirmed in both experiments, with shorter response times for emotion targets and greater priming effects for emotion word pairs than for emotion-laden word pairs. The role of valence is discussed, emphasizing the ways valence affects the speed with which these words are accessed and processed.
authors.forename: Stephanie A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Kazanas
authors.forename: Jeanette
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Altarriba
mesh_terms: D001143:Arousal; D032882:Comprehension; D005239:Fear; D006801:Humans; D008149:Love; D010153:Paired-Associate Learning; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D060865:Repetition Priming; D012660:Semantics; D057190:Stroop Test; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology; D055815:Young Adult