title: Mixing positive and negative valence: Affective-semantic integration of bivalent words.
abstract: Single words have affective and aesthetic properties that influence their processing. Here we investigated the processing of a special case of word stimuli that are extremely difficult to evaluate, bivalent noun-noun-compounds (NNCs), i.e. novel words that mix a positive and negative noun, e.g. 'Bombensex' (bomb-sex). In a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment we compared their processing with easier-to-evaluate non-bivalent NNCs in a valence decision task (VDT). Bivalent NNCs produced longer reaction times and elicited greater activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) than non-bivalent words, especially in contrast to words of negative valence. We attribute this effect to a LIFG-grounded process of semantic integration that requires greater effort for processing converse information, supporting the notion of a valence representation based on associations in semantic networks.
authors.affiliation: Department of Education and Psychology, Free University Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kuhlmann
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University Wuppertal, Max-Horkheimer-Str. 20, 42119 Wuppertal, Germany.
authors.forename: Markus J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Hofmann
authors.affiliation: Center for Applied Neuroscience, Free University Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Benny B
authors.initials: BB
authors.lastname: Briesemeister
authors.affiliation: Department of Education and Psychology, Free University Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany.|Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion (D.I.N.E.), Free University Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany.|Center for Cognitive Neuroscience (CCNB), Free University Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Arthur M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Jacobs