It’s all in your head – how anticipating evaluation affects the processing of emotional trait adjectives
Language has an intrinsically evaluative and communicative function. Words can serve to describe emotional traits and states in others and communicate evaluations. Using electroencephalography (EEG), we investigate how the cerebral processing of emotional trait adjectives is modulated by their perce...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2014-11-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01292/full |
| _version_ | 1819021093346738176 |
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| author | Sebastian eSchindler Sebastian eSchindler Martin eWegrzyn Martin eWegrzyn Inga eSteppacher Johanna Maria Kissler Johanna Maria Kissler |
| author_facet | Sebastian eSchindler Sebastian eSchindler Martin eWegrzyn Martin eWegrzyn Inga eSteppacher Johanna Maria Kissler Johanna Maria Kissler |
| author_sort | Sebastian eSchindler |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Language has an intrinsically evaluative and communicative function. Words can serve to describe emotional traits and states in others and communicate evaluations. Using electroencephalography (EEG), we investigate how the cerebral processing of emotional trait adjectives is modulated by their perceived communicative sender in anticipation of an evaluation. 16 students were videotaped while they described themselves. They were told that a stranger would evaluate their personality based on this recording by endorsing trait adjectives. In a control condition a computer program supposedly randomly selected the adjectives. Actually, both conditions were random. A larger parietal N1 was found for adjectives in the supposedly human-generated condition. This indicates that more visual attention is allocated to the presented adjectives when putatively interacting with a human. Between 400 and 700ms a fronto-central main effect of emotion was found. Positive, and in tendency also negative adjectives, led to a larger late positive potential (LPP) compared to neutral adjectives. A centro-parietal interaction in the LPP-window was due to larger LPP amplitudes for negative compared to neutral adjectives within the ‘human sender’ condition. Larger LPP amplitudes are related to stimulus elaboration and memory consolidation. Participants responded more to emotional content particularly when presented in a meaningful ‘human’ context. This was first observed in the early posterior negativity window (EPN, 210-260 ms). But the significant interaction between sender and emotion reached only trend-level on post-hoc tests. Our results specify differential effects of even implied communicative partners on emotional language processing. They show that anticipating evaluation by a communicative partner alone is sufficient to increase the relevance of particularly emotional adjectives, given a seemingly realistic interactive setting. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-21T04:01:37Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-876af04370b94e0e9311729ff1ccbc39 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-21T04:01:37Z |
| publishDate | 2014-11-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-876af04370b94e0e9311729ff1ccbc392022-12-21T19:16:42ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782014-11-01510.3389/fpsyg.2014.01292111302It’s all in your head – how anticipating evaluation affects the processing of emotional trait adjectivesSebastian eSchindler0Sebastian eSchindler1Martin eWegrzyn2Martin eWegrzyn3Inga eSteppacher4Johanna Maria Kissler5Johanna Maria Kissler6University of BielefeldUniversity of BielefeldUniversity of BielefeldUniversity of BielefeldUniversity of BielefeldUniversity of BielefeldUniversity of BielefeldLanguage has an intrinsically evaluative and communicative function. Words can serve to describe emotional traits and states in others and communicate evaluations. Using electroencephalography (EEG), we investigate how the cerebral processing of emotional trait adjectives is modulated by their perceived communicative sender in anticipation of an evaluation. 16 students were videotaped while they described themselves. They were told that a stranger would evaluate their personality based on this recording by endorsing trait adjectives. In a control condition a computer program supposedly randomly selected the adjectives. Actually, both conditions were random. A larger parietal N1 was found for adjectives in the supposedly human-generated condition. This indicates that more visual attention is allocated to the presented adjectives when putatively interacting with a human. Between 400 and 700ms a fronto-central main effect of emotion was found. Positive, and in tendency also negative adjectives, led to a larger late positive potential (LPP) compared to neutral adjectives. A centro-parietal interaction in the LPP-window was due to larger LPP amplitudes for negative compared to neutral adjectives within the ‘human sender’ condition. Larger LPP amplitudes are related to stimulus elaboration and memory consolidation. Participants responded more to emotional content particularly when presented in a meaningful ‘human’ context. This was first observed in the early posterior negativity window (EPN, 210-260 ms). But the significant interaction between sender and emotion reached only trend-level on post-hoc tests. Our results specify differential effects of even implied communicative partners on emotional language processing. They show that anticipating evaluation by a communicative partner alone is sufficient to increase the relevance of particularly emotional adjectives, given a seemingly realistic interactive setting.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01292/fullEmotionsLanguageEEG/ERPSocial feedbackfeedback anticipationcommunicative context |
| spellingShingle | Sebastian eSchindler Sebastian eSchindler Martin eWegrzyn Martin eWegrzyn Inga eSteppacher Johanna Maria Kissler Johanna Maria Kissler It’s all in your head – how anticipating evaluation affects the processing of emotional trait adjectives Frontiers in Psychology Emotions Language EEG/ERP Social feedback feedback anticipation communicative context |
| title | It’s all in your head – how anticipating evaluation affects the processing of emotional trait adjectives |
| title_full | It’s all in your head – how anticipating evaluation affects the processing of emotional trait adjectives |
| title_fullStr | It’s all in your head – how anticipating evaluation affects the processing of emotional trait adjectives |
| title_full_unstemmed | It’s all in your head – how anticipating evaluation affects the processing of emotional trait adjectives |
| title_short | It’s all in your head – how anticipating evaluation affects the processing of emotional trait adjectives |
| title_sort | it s all in your head how anticipating evaluation affects the processing of emotional trait adjectives |
| topic | Emotions Language EEG/ERP Social feedback feedback anticipation communicative context |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01292/full |
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