Learning new words’ emotional meanings in the contexts of faces and sentences

  1. Beixian Gu 1
  2. Bo Liu 1
  3. Huili Wang 2
  4. David Beltrán 1
  5. Manuel de Vega 1
  1. 1 Universidad de La Laguna, Spain
  2. 2 Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China
Revista:
Psicológica: Revista de metodología y psicología experimental

ISSN: 1576-8597

Any de publicació: 2021

Volum: 42

Número: 1

Pàgines: 57-84

Tipus: Article

DOI: 10.2478/PSICOLJ-2021-0004 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openAccés obert editor

Altres publicacions en: Psicológica: Revista de metodología y psicología experimental

Resum

Language is a powerful vehicle for expressing emotions, although the process by which words acquire their emotional meaning remains poorly understood. This study investigates how words acquire emotional meanings using two types of associative contexts: faces and sentences. To this end, participants were exposed topseudowords repeatedly paired either with faces or with sentences expressing the emotions of disgust, sadness, or neutrality. We examined participants’ acquisition of meanings by testing them in both within-modality (e.g., learning pseudowords with faces and testing them with a new set of faces with the target expressions) and cross-modality generalization tasks (e.g. learning pseudowords with faces and testing them with sentences). Results in the generalization tests showed that the participants in the Face Group acquired disgust and neutral meanings better than participants in the Sentence Group. In turn, participants in the Sentence Group acquired the meaning of sadness better than their counterparts in the Face Group, but this advantage was only manifested in the cross-modality test with faces. We conclude that both contexts are effective for acquiring the emotional meaning of words, although acquisition with faces is more versatile or generalizable.

Referències bibliogràfiques

  • Adolphs, R., Russell, J. A., & Tranel, D. (1999). A role for the human amygdala in recognizing emotional arousal from unpleasant stimuli. Psychological Science, 10(2), 167–171. https://doi.org/10.1111%2F1467-9280.00126
  • Aragão, R. (2011). Beliefs and emotions in foreign language learning. System, 39(3), 302–313. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2011.07.003
  • Baggott, S., Palermo, R., & Fox, A. M. (2011). Processing emotional category congruency between emotional facial expressions and emotional words. Cognition and Emotion, 25(2), 369–379. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2010.488945
  • Baumeister, J. C., Foroni, F., Conrad, M., Rumiati, R. I., & Winkielman, P. (2017). Embodiment and emotional memory in first vs. second language. Frontiers in Psychology, 8(MAR), 394. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00394
  • Beall, P. M., & Herbert, A. M. (2008). The face wins: Stronger automatic processing of affect in facial expressions than words in a modified Stroop task. Cognition and Emotion, 22(8), 1613–1642. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930801940370
  • Blessing, A., Zöllig, J., Weierstall, R., Dammann, G., & Martin, M. (2013). Evaluative conditioning with facial stimuli in dementia patients. Journal of Neurodegenrative Diseases, 2013, 854643. https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/854643
  • Bloom, L. (2000). The intentionality of word learning: How to learn a word, any word. In R. M. Golinkoff, K. Hirsh-Pasek, L. Bloom, L. B. Smith, A. L. Woodward, N. Akhtar, M. Tomasello & G. Hollich (Eds.), Becoming a word learner: A debate on lexical acquisition (pp. 19–50). New York: Oxford.
  • Brosch, T., Sander, D., Pourtois, G., & Scherer, K. R. (2008). Beyond fear: Rapid spatial orienting toward positive emotional stimuli. Psychological Science, 19(4), 362–370. https://doi.org/10.1111%2Fj.1467-9280.2008.02094.x
  • Calder, A. J., Keane, J., Manes, F., Antoun, N., & Young, A. W. (2000). Impaired recognition and experience of disgust following brain injury. Nature Neuroscience, 3(11), 1077–1078. https://doi.org/10.1038/80586
  • Carver, C. S. (2004). Negative affects deriving from the behavioral approach system. Emotion, 4(1), 3–22. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.4.1.3
  • Chaffin, R., Morris, R. K., & Seely, R. E. (2001). Learning new word meanings from context: A study of eye movements. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 27(1), 225–235. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.27.1.225
  • Citron, F. M. M. (2012). Neural correlates of written emotion word processing: A review of recent electrophysiological and hemodynamic neuroimaging studies. Brain and Language, 122(3), 211–226. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2011.12.007
  • Darwin, C. (1872). The expression of the emotions in man and animals. London: John Murray.
  • De Houwer, J., Baeyens, F., & Eelen, P. (1994). Verbal evaluative conditioning with undetected US presentations. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 32(6), 629–633. https://doi.org/10.1016/0005-7967(94)90017-5
  • De Houwer, J., Hendrickx, H., & Baeyens, F. (1997). Evaluative learning with “subliminally” presented stimuli. Consciousness and Cognition, 6(1), 87–107. https://doi.org/10.1006/ccog.1996.0281
  • Denham, S. A. (1998). Emotional development in young children. New York: Guilford Press.
  • Dudschig, C., de la Vega, I., & Kaup, B. (2014). Embodiment and second-language: Automatic activation of motor responses during processing spatially associated L2 words and emotion L2 words in a vertical Stroop paradigm. Brain and Language, 132, 14–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2014.02.002
  • Eden, A. S., Zwitserlood, P., Keuper, K., Junghöfer, M., Laeger, I., Zwanzger, P., & Dobel, C. (2014). All in its proper time: Monitoring the emergence of a memory bias for novel, arousing-negative words in individuals with high and low trait anxiety. PLoS ONE, 9(6). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0098339
  • Ekman, P, Hager, J. C., & Friesen, W. V. (2002). Facial action coding system: The manual. Salt Lake City: Research Nexus.
  • Ekman, P. (1992a). Facial expressions of emotion: New findings, new questions. Psychological Science, 3(1), 34–38. https://doi.org/10.1111%2Fj.1467-9280.1992.tb00253.x
  • Ekman, P. (1992b). An argument for basic emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 6(3–4), 169–200. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699939208411068
  • Ekman, P. (1993). Facial expression and emotion. American Psychologist, 48(4), 384–392. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.48.4.384
  • Fan, L., Xu, Q., Wang, X., Xu, F., Yang, Y., & Lu, Z. (2018). The automatic activation of emotion words measured using the emotional face-word Stroop task in late Chinese– English bilinguals. Cognition and Emotion, 32(2), 315–324. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2017.1303451
  • Fan, L., Xu, Q., Wang, X., Zhang, F., Yang, Y., & Liu, X. (2016). Neural Correlates of Task-Irrelevant First and Second Language Emotion Words – Evidence from the Emotional Face–Word Stroop Task. Frontiers in Psychology, 7(NOV), 1672. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01672
  • Fernández-Dols, J.-M., & Crivelli, C. (2013). Emotion and expression: Naturalistic studies. Emotion Review, 5(1), 24–29. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1754073912457229
  • Ferrer, R. A., Grenen, E. G., & Taber, J. M. (2015). Effectiveness of Internet-based affect induction procedures: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Emotion, 15(6), 752–762. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000035
  • Fields, E. C., & Kuperberg, G. R. (2012). It’s all about you: An ERP study of emotion and self-relevance in discourse. NeuroImage, 62(1), 562–574. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.05.003
  • Frishkoff, G. A., Perfetti, C. A., & Collins-Thompson, K. (2010). Lexical quality in the brain: ERP evidence for robust word learning from context. Developmental Neuropsychology, 35(4), 376–403. https://doi.org/10.1080/87565641.2010.480915
  • Fritsch, N., & Kuchinke, L. (2013). Acquired affective associations induce emotion effects in word recognition: An ERP study. Brain and Language, 124(1), 75–83. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2012.12.001
  • Gallese, V., Keysers, C., & Rizzolatti, G. (2004). A unifying view of the basis of social cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(9), 396–403. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2004.07.002
  • Gantiva, C., Araujo, A., Calderón, L., Gómez, P., & Reina, F. (2019). Psychophysiological responses to facial expression of surprise, sadness, and disgust. Australian Journal of Psychology, 71(2), 100–107. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajpy.12222
  • Hauk, O., Johnsrude, I., & Pulvermüller, F. (2004). Somatotopic Representation of Action Words in Human Motor and Premotor Cortex. Neuron, 41(2), 301–307. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0896-6273(03)00838-9
  • Hebb, D. O. (1949). The organization of behavior; a neuropsychological theory. New York: Wiley.
  • Izard, C. E. (1971). The face of emotion. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
  • Jabbi, M., Bastiaansen, J., & Keysers, C. (2008). A common anterior insula representation of disgust observation, experience and imagination shows divergent functional connectivity pathways. PLoS ONE, 3(8). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0002939
  • Junghöfer, M., Rehbein, M. A., Maitzen, J., Schindler, S., & Kissler, J. (2017). An evil face? Verbal evaluative multi-CS conditioning enhances face-evoked mid-latency magnetoencephalographic responses. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 12(4), 695–705. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsw179
  • Kar, B. R., Srinivasan, N., Nehabala, Y., & Nigam, R. (2018). Proactive and reactive control depends on emotional valence: a Stroop study with emotional expressions and words. Cognition and Emotion, 32(2), 325–340.
  • Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces (KDEF) documents — Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology — Ghent University. (n.d.). Retrieved April 8, 2020, from https://www.ugent.be/pp/ekgp/en/research/research-groups/panlab/kdef
  • Keltner, D., & Kring, A. M. (1998). Emotion, social function, and psychopathology. Review of General Psychology, 2(3), 320–342. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.320
  • Kissler, J., Herbert, C., Winkler, I., & Junghofer, M. (2009). Emotion and attention in visual word processing-An ERP study. Biological Psychology, 80(1), 75–83. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2008.03.004
  • Kroll, J. F., & Stewart, E. (1994). Category interference in translation and picture naming: Evidence for asymmetric connections between bilingual memory representations. Journal of Memory and Language, 33(2), 149–174. https://doi.org/10.1006/jmla.1994.1008
  • Landauer, T. K., & Dumais, S. T. (1997). A solution to Plato’s problem: The latent semantic analysis theory of acquisition, induction, and representation of knowledge. Psychological Review, 104(2), 211–240. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.104.2.211
  • Lee, E., Kang, J. I., Park, I. H., Kim, J. J., & An, S. K. (2008). Is a neutral face really evaluated as being emotionally neutral? Psychiatry Research, 157(1–3), 77–85. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2007.02.005
  • Lench, H. C., Flores, S. A., & Bench, S. W. (2011a). Discrete emotions predict changes in cognition, judgment, experience, behavior, and physiology: A meta-analysis of experimental emotion elicitations. Psychological Bulletin, 137(5), 834–855. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024244
  • Lench, H. C., Flores, S. A., & Bench, S. W. (2011b). Discrete emotions predict changes in cognition, judgment, experience, behavior, and physiology: A meta-analysis of experimental emotion elicitations. Psychological Bulletin, 137(5), 834–855. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024244
  • Lench, H. C., Tibbett, T. P., & Bench, S. W. (2016). Exploring the toolkit of emotion: What do sadness and anger do for us? Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 10(1), 11–25. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12229
  • Levine, L. J., & Pizarro, D. A. (2004). Emotion and memory research: A grumpy overview. Social Cognition, 22(5), 530–554. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.22.5.530.50767
  • Lindsay, S., & Gaskell, M. G. (2010). A complementary systems account of word learning in L1 and L2. Language Learning, 60, 45–63. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2010.00600.x
  • Lundqvist, D., Flykt, A., & Öhman. A. (1998). The Karolinska directed emotional faces - KDEF. CD ROM from Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Psychology Section, Karolinska Institutet.
  • Macedonia, M. (2015). Learning styles and vocabulary acquisition in second language: How the brain learns. Frontiers in Psychology, 6(NOV), 1800. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01800
  • Markham, R., & Adams, K. (1992). The effect of type of task on children’s identification of facial expressions. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 16(1), 21–39. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00986877
  • Marsh, P., Beauchaine, T. P., & Williams, B. (2008). Dissociation of sad facial expressions and autonomic nervous system responding in boys with disruptive behavior disorders. Psychophysiology, 45(1), 100–110. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8986.2007.00603.x
  • Mattavelli, G., Sormaz, M., Flack, T., Asghar, A. U. R., Siyan, F., Frey, J., Manssuer, L., Usten, D., Young, A. W., & Andrews, T. J. (2014). Neural responses to facial expressions support the role of the amygdala in processing threat. Social Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience, 9(11), 1684–1689. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nst162
  • Mestres Missé, A. (2008). Neural correlates of word learning and meaning acquisition. Universitat de Barcelona.
  • Mikulincer, M., & Florian, V. (1997). A Cognitive-Relational Approach to Emotions—The Appraisal and Coping Components of Sadness, Shame, Guilt, Jealousy, and Disgust. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 16(3), 263–279. https://doi.org/10.2190%2F00L2-TL35-6W2Y-E9M1
  • Nagy, W. E., Anderson, R. C., & Herman, P. A. (1987). Learning word meanings from context during normal reading. American Educational Research Journal, 24(2), 237–270. https://doi.org/10.3102%2F00028312024002237
  • Namba, S., Kagamihara, T., Miyatani, M., & Nakao, T. (2017). Spontaneous facial expressions reveal new action units for the sad experiences. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 41(3), 203–220. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-017-0251-6
  • Niedenthal, P. M. (2007). Embodying emotion. Science, 316(5827), 1002–1005. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1136930
  • Niedenthal, P. M., Brauer, M., Robin, L., & Innes-Ker, Å. H. (2002). Adult attachment and the perception of facial expression of emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(3), 419–433. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.82.3.419
  • Opitz, B., & Degner, J. (2012). Emotionality in a second language: It’s a matter of time. Neuropsychologia, 50(8), 1961–1967. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.04.021
  • Padmala, S., Bauer, A., & Pessoa, L. (2011). Negative emotion impairs conflict-driven executive control. Frontiers in Psychology, 2(AUG), 192. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00192
  • Pasfield-Neofitou, S., Huang, H., & Grant, S. (2015). Lost in second life: virtual embodiment and language learning via multimodal communication. Educational Technology Research and Development, 63(5), 709–726. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-015-9384-7
  • Pavlenko, A. (2012). Affective processing in bilingual speakers: Disembodied cognition? International Journal of Psychology, 47(6), 405–428. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207594.2012.743665
  • Phan, K. L., Wager, T., Taylor, S. F., & Liberzon, I. (2002). Functional neuroanatomy of emotion: A meta-analysis of emotion activation studies in PET and fMRI. NeuroImage, 16(2), 331–348. https://doi.org/10.1006/nimg.2002.1087
  • Reisenzein, R., Studtmann, M., & Horstmann, G. (2013). Coherence between emotion and facial expression: Evidence from laboratory experiments. Emotion Review, 5(1), 16–23. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073912457228
  • Ritz, T., Thöns, M., Fahrenkrug, S., & Dahme, B. (2005). Airways, respiration, and respiratory sinus arrhythmia during picture viewing. Psychophysiology, 42(5), 568–578. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8986.2005.00312.x
  • Rozin, P., & Fallon, A. E. (1987). A perspective on disgust. Psychological Review, 94(1), 23–41. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.94.1.23
  • Rozin, P., & Haidt, J. (2013). The domains of disgust and their origins: Contrasting biological and cultural evolutionary accounts. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 17(8), 367–368. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2013.06.001
  • Rozin, P., Haidt, J., & McCauley, C. R. (2008). Disgust. In M. Lewis, J. M. Haviland-Jones, & L. F. Barrett (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 757–776). New York: Guilford Press.
  • Rozin, P., Lowery, L., & Ebert, R. (1994). Varieties of disgust faces and the structure of disgust. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66(5), 870–881. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.66.5.870
  • Russell, J. A., Bachorowski, J.-A., & Fernández-Dols, J.-M. (2003). Facial and vocal expressions of emotion. Annual Review of Psychology, 54(1), 329–349. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.54.101601.145102
  • Schacht, A., & Sommer, W. (2009). Emotions in word and face processing: Early and late cortical responses. Brain and Cognition, 69(3), 538–550. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2008.11.005
  • Sheikh, N. A., & Titone, D. (2016). The embodiment of emotional words in a second language: An eye-movement study. Cognition and Emotion, 30(3), 488–500. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2015.1018144
  • Spielberger, C. D., & Reheiser, E. C. (2010). The Nature and Measurement of Anger. In M. Potegal, G. Stemmler, C. Spielberger (Eds.), International Handbook of Anger (pp. 403–412). New York: Springer.
  • Staats, A. W., & Staats, C. K. (1959). Meaning and m: Correlated but separate. Psychological Review, 66(2), 136–144. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0047970
  • Staats, C. K., & Staats, A. W. (1957). Meaning established by classical conditioning. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 54(1), 74–80. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0048859
  • Stark, R., Walter, B., Schienle, A., & Vaitl, D. (2005). Psychophysiological correlates of disgust and disgust sensitivity. Journal of Psychophysiology, 19(1), 50–60. https://doi.org/10.1027/0269-8803.19.1.50
  • Stenberg, G., Wiking, S., & Dahl, M. (1998). Judging words at face value: Interference in a word processing task reveals automatic processing of affective facial expressions. Cognition and Emotion, 12(6), 755–782. https://doi.org/10.1080/026999398379420
  • Vicari, S., Reilly, J. S., Pasqualetti, P., Vizzotto, A., & Caltagirone, C. (2000). Recognition of facial expressions of emotions in school-age children: the intersection of perceptual and semantic categories. Acta Paediatrica, 89(7), 836–845. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1651-2227.2000.tb00392.x
  • Wager, T. D., & Smith, E. E. (2003). Neuroimaging studies of working memory: A meta-analysis. Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience, 3(4), 255–274. https://doi.org/10.3758/CABN.3.4.255
  • Walther, E. (2002). Guilty by mere association: evaluative conditioning and the spreading attitude effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(6), 919–934. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.82.6.919
  • Wicker, B., Keysers, C., Plailly, J., Royet, J. P., Gallese, V., & Rizzolatti, G. (2003). Both of us disgusted in my insula: The common neural basis of seeing and feeling disgust. Neuron, 40(3), 655–664. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0896-6273(03)00679-2
  • Woody, S. R., & Teachman, B. A. (2006). Intersection of disgust and fear: Normative and pathological views. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 7(3), 291–311. https://doi.org/10.1093/clipsy.7.3.291
  • Yan, C., & Dillard, J. P. (2010). Emotion inductions cause changes in activation levels of the behavioural inhibition and approach systems. Personality and Individual Differences, 48(5), 676–680. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2009.12.002