Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39704114›Full record

ArticlePsychophysiology2025

The influence of lexical word properties on selective attention to emotional words: Support for the attentional tuning of valent word forms.

Jonas Schmuck, Robert Schnuerch, Emely Voltz, Hannah Kirsten, Henning Gibbons

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Article in Psychophysiology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

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2citing papers in PubMed
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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Jonas SchmuckDepartment of Psychology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.ORCID 0000-0002-8719-3743
Robert SchnuerchDepartment of Psychology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.ORCID 0000-0002-8080-1443
Emely VoltzDepartment of Psychology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.
Hannah KirstenDepartment of Psychology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.ORCID 0000-0001-9215-0265
Henning GibbonsDepartment of Psychology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.ORCID 0000-0001-7054-0190

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Using event-related potentials, it was found that selective attention to valence facilitates early affective discrimination of words with task-relevant valence and inhibits affective processing of words with task-irrelevant valence. This attention-based modulation of affective processing presumably relies on prior associative learning linking visual word forms with their affects. To investigate this hypothesis, we employed a valence-detection task and manipulated lexical (length, frequency) and affective (arousal) word features. Since we assumed that these features strongly influence the strength of visual form-affect associations, we expected them to play a crucial role in early affective discrimination. Fifty-eight participants made speeded responses only to words of one predefined target level of valence (negative, neutral, or positive), which varied across three blocks. As expected, the visual P1 component yielded greater valence discrimination for the target than for nontarget words. This interactive effect was most prominent for short, high-frequency and low-arousal words, respectively. Regarding the N170 component, low-frequency words showed higher amplitudes when they were either positive low-arousing or negative high-arousing compared with the other two sets of words, independently of target status. Additionally, an average-referenced EPN-like posterior negativity (150-270 ms) revealed a target-independent interaction between valence and arousal and increased amplitudes for negative target words. Results extend previous research in showing that particularly short and highly frequent valent word forms can be tuned by selective attention to valence, facilitating early affective discrimination. Finally, findings support the notion that valence and arousal interact during early preattentive, bottom-up processing which is interpreted within the valence-arousal conflict theory.

Indexed as

AttentionElectroencephalographyEmotionsEvoked PotentialsAdolescentAdultArousalFemaleHumansMaleReadingYoung Adultemotional wordsemotion–attention interactionN170P1selective attentionvalence–arousal conflict

Identifiers

PMID39704114
PMCPMC11660035

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.