Subliminal Emotional Words Impact Syntactic Processing: Evidence from Performance and Event-Related Brain Potentials
Recent studies demonstrate that syntactic processing can be affected by emotional information and that subliminal emotional information can also affect cognitive processes. In this study, we explore whether unconscious emotional information may also impact syntactic processing. In an Event-Related b...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2017-04-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Human Neuroscience |
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| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00192/full |
| _version_ | 1819013666660417536 |
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| author | Laura Jiménez-Ortega Laura Jiménez-Ortega Javier Espuny Pilar Herreros de Tejada Pilar Herreros de Tejada Carolina Vargas-Rivero Manuel Martín-Loeches Manuel Martín-Loeches |
| author_facet | Laura Jiménez-Ortega Laura Jiménez-Ortega Javier Espuny Pilar Herreros de Tejada Pilar Herreros de Tejada Carolina Vargas-Rivero Manuel Martín-Loeches Manuel Martín-Loeches |
| author_sort | Laura Jiménez-Ortega |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Recent studies demonstrate that syntactic processing can be affected by emotional information and that subliminal emotional information can also affect cognitive processes. In this study, we explore whether unconscious emotional information may also impact syntactic processing. In an Event-Related brain Potential (ERP) study, positive, neutral and negative subliminal adjectives were inserted within neutral sentences, just before the presentation of the supraliminal adjective. They could either be correct (50%) or contain a morphosyntactic violation (number or gender disagreements). Larger error rates were observed for incorrect sentences than for correct ones, in contrast to most studies using supraliminal information. Strikingly, emotional adjectives affected the conscious syntactic processing of sentences containing morphosyntactic anomalies. The neutral condition elicited left anterior negativity (LAN) followed by a P600 component. However, a lack of anterior negativity and an early P600 onset for the negative condition were found, probably as a result of the negative subliminal correct adjective capturing early syntactic resources. Positive masked adjectives in turn prompted an N400 component in response to morphosyntactic violations, probably reflecting the induction of a heuristic processing mode involving access to lexico-semantic information to solve agreement anomalies. Our results add to recent evidence on the impact of emotional information on syntactic processing, while showing that this can occur even when the reader is unaware of the emotional stimuli. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-21T02:03:35Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-53931c4171a94116a80dfb177145cbf8 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1662-5161 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-21T02:03:35Z |
| publishDate | 2017-04-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Human Neuroscience |
| spelling | doaj.art-53931c4171a94116a80dfb177145cbf82022-12-21T19:19:34ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Human Neuroscience1662-51612017-04-011110.3389/fnhum.2017.00192243492Subliminal Emotional Words Impact Syntactic Processing: Evidence from Performance and Event-Related Brain PotentialsLaura Jiménez-Ortega0Laura Jiménez-Ortega1Javier Espuny2Pilar Herreros de Tejada3Pilar Herreros de Tejada4Carolina Vargas-Rivero5Manuel Martín-Loeches6Manuel Martín-Loeches7Centre for Human Evolution and Behaviour, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Complutense University of Madrid (UCM-ISCIII)Madrid, SpainPsychobiology Department, Complutense University of MadridMadrid, SpainCentre for Human Evolution and Behaviour, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Complutense University of Madrid (UCM-ISCIII)Madrid, SpainCentre for Human Evolution and Behaviour, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Complutense University of Madrid (UCM-ISCIII)Madrid, SpainPsychobiology Department, Complutense University of MadridMadrid, SpainCentre for Human Evolution and Behaviour, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Complutense University of Madrid (UCM-ISCIII)Madrid, SpainCentre for Human Evolution and Behaviour, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Complutense University of Madrid (UCM-ISCIII)Madrid, SpainPsychobiology Department, Complutense University of MadridMadrid, SpainRecent studies demonstrate that syntactic processing can be affected by emotional information and that subliminal emotional information can also affect cognitive processes. In this study, we explore whether unconscious emotional information may also impact syntactic processing. In an Event-Related brain Potential (ERP) study, positive, neutral and negative subliminal adjectives were inserted within neutral sentences, just before the presentation of the supraliminal adjective. They could either be correct (50%) or contain a morphosyntactic violation (number or gender disagreements). Larger error rates were observed for incorrect sentences than for correct ones, in contrast to most studies using supraliminal information. Strikingly, emotional adjectives affected the conscious syntactic processing of sentences containing morphosyntactic anomalies. The neutral condition elicited left anterior negativity (LAN) followed by a P600 component. However, a lack of anterior negativity and an early P600 onset for the negative condition were found, probably as a result of the negative subliminal correct adjective capturing early syntactic resources. Positive masked adjectives in turn prompted an N400 component in response to morphosyntactic violations, probably reflecting the induction of a heuristic processing mode involving access to lexico-semantic information to solve agreement anomalies. Our results add to recent evidence on the impact of emotional information on syntactic processing, while showing that this can occur even when the reader is unaware of the emotional stimuli.http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00192/fulllanguage comprehensionunconscious processingemotional effectssubliminal presentationsyntactic processingLAN |
| spellingShingle | Laura Jiménez-Ortega Laura Jiménez-Ortega Javier Espuny Pilar Herreros de Tejada Pilar Herreros de Tejada Carolina Vargas-Rivero Manuel Martín-Loeches Manuel Martín-Loeches Subliminal Emotional Words Impact Syntactic Processing: Evidence from Performance and Event-Related Brain Potentials Frontiers in Human Neuroscience language comprehension unconscious processing emotional effects subliminal presentation syntactic processing LAN |
| title | Subliminal Emotional Words Impact Syntactic Processing: Evidence from Performance and Event-Related Brain Potentials |
| title_full | Subliminal Emotional Words Impact Syntactic Processing: Evidence from Performance and Event-Related Brain Potentials |
| title_fullStr | Subliminal Emotional Words Impact Syntactic Processing: Evidence from Performance and Event-Related Brain Potentials |
| title_full_unstemmed | Subliminal Emotional Words Impact Syntactic Processing: Evidence from Performance and Event-Related Brain Potentials |
| title_short | Subliminal Emotional Words Impact Syntactic Processing: Evidence from Performance and Event-Related Brain Potentials |
| title_sort | subliminal emotional words impact syntactic processing evidence from performance and event related brain potentials |
| topic | language comprehension unconscious processing emotional effects subliminal presentation syntactic processing LAN |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00192/full |
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