Rights statement: Open Access funded by Wellcome Trust Under a Creative Commons license
Final published version, 1.52 MB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY
Final published version
Licence: CC BY
Final published version
Licence: CC BY
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Emotional valence and arousal affect reading in an interactive way
T2 - neuroimaging evidence for an approach-withdrawal framework
AU - Citron, Francesca M. M.
AU - Gray, Marcus A.
AU - Critchley, Hugo D.
AU - Weekes, Brendan S.
AU - Ferstl, Evelyn C.
PY - 2014/4
Y1 - 2014/4
N2 - A growing body of literature shows that the emotional content of verbal material affects reading, wherein emotional words are given processing priority compared to neutral words. Human emotions can be conceptualised within a two-dimensional model comprised of emotional valence and arousal (intensity). These variables are at least in part distinct, but recent studies report interactive effects during implicit emotion processing and relate these to stimulus-evoked approach-withdrawal tendencies.The aim of the present study was to explore how valence and arousal interact at the neural level, during implicit emotion word processing. The emotional attributes of written word stimuli were orthogonally manipulated based on behavioural ratings from a corpus of emotion words. Stimuli were presented during an fMRI experiment while 16 participants performed a lexical decision task, which did not require explicit evaluation of a word's emotional content.Results showed greater neural activation within right insular cortex in response to stimuli evoking conflicting approach-withdrawal tendencies (i.e., positive high-arousal and negative low-arousal words) compared to stimuli evoking congruent approach vs. withdrawal tendencies (i.e., positive low-arousal and negative high-arousal words). Further, a significant cluster of activation in the left extra-striate cortex was found in response to emotional than neutral words, suggesting enhanced perceptual processing of emotionally salient stimuli.These findings support an interactive two-dimensional approach to the study of emotion word recognition and suggest that the integration of valence and arousal dimensions recruits a brain region associated with interoception, emotional awareness and sympathetic functions.
AB - A growing body of literature shows that the emotional content of verbal material affects reading, wherein emotional words are given processing priority compared to neutral words. Human emotions can be conceptualised within a two-dimensional model comprised of emotional valence and arousal (intensity). These variables are at least in part distinct, but recent studies report interactive effects during implicit emotion processing and relate these to stimulus-evoked approach-withdrawal tendencies.The aim of the present study was to explore how valence and arousal interact at the neural level, during implicit emotion word processing. The emotional attributes of written word stimuli were orthogonally manipulated based on behavioural ratings from a corpus of emotion words. Stimuli were presented during an fMRI experiment while 16 participants performed a lexical decision task, which did not require explicit evaluation of a word's emotional content.Results showed greater neural activation within right insular cortex in response to stimuli evoking conflicting approach-withdrawal tendencies (i.e., positive high-arousal and negative low-arousal words) compared to stimuli evoking congruent approach vs. withdrawal tendencies (i.e., positive low-arousal and negative high-arousal words). Further, a significant cluster of activation in the left extra-striate cortex was found in response to emotional than neutral words, suggesting enhanced perceptual processing of emotionally salient stimuli.These findings support an interactive two-dimensional approach to the study of emotion word recognition and suggest that the integration of valence and arousal dimensions recruits a brain region associated with interoception, emotional awareness and sympathetic functions.
KW - Valence
KW - Arousal
KW - Approach
KW - Withdrawal
KW - Emotional words
KW - fMRI
KW - EVENT-RELATED FMRI
KW - ANTERIOR CINGULATE CORTEX
KW - WORD RECOGNITION
KW - NEURAL SYSTEMS
KW - PROCESSING VALENCE
KW - TEXT COMPREHENSION
KW - NEGATIVE WORDS
KW - AMYGDALA
KW - INFORMATION
KW - ACTIVATION
U2 - 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.01.002
DO - 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.01.002
M3 - Journal article
VL - 56
SP - 79
EP - 89
JO - Neuropsychologia
JF - Neuropsychologia
SN - 0028-3932
ER -