Tracking Affective Language Comprehension: Simulating and Evaluating Character Affect in Morally Loaded Narratives
Facial electromyography research shows that corrugator supercilii (“frowning muscle”) activity tracks the emotional valence of linguistic stimuli. Grounded or embodied accounts of language processing take such activity to reflect the simulation or “re-enactment” of emotion, as part of the retrieval...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2019-02-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
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| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00318/full |
| _version_ | 1817980141370867712 |
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| author | Björn ‘t Hart Marijn E. Struiksma Anton van Boxtel Jos J. A. van Berkum |
| author_facet | Björn ‘t Hart Marijn E. Struiksma Anton van Boxtel Jos J. A. van Berkum |
| author_sort | Björn ‘t Hart |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Facial electromyography research shows that corrugator supercilii (“frowning muscle”) activity tracks the emotional valence of linguistic stimuli. Grounded or embodied accounts of language processing take such activity to reflect the simulation or “re-enactment” of emotion, as part of the retrieval of word meaning (e.g., of “furious”) and/or of building a situation model (e.g., for “Mark is furious”). However, the same muscle also expresses our primary emotional evaluation of things we encounter. Language-driven affective simulation can easily be at odds with the reader’s affective evaluation of what language describes (e.g., when we like Mark being furious). In a previous experiment (‘t Hart et al., 2018) we demonstrated that neither language-driven simulation nor affective evaluation alone seem sufficient to explain the corrugator patterns that emerge during online language comprehension in these complex cases. Those results showed support for a multiple-drivers account of corrugator activity, where both simulation and evaluation processes contribute to the activation patterns observed in the corrugator. The study at hand replicates and extends these findings. With more refined control over when precisely affective information became available in a narrative, we again find results that speak against an interpretation of corrugator activity in terms of simulation or evaluation alone, and as such support the multiple-drivers account. Additional evidence suggests that the simulation driver involved reflects simulation at the level of situation model construction, rather than at the level of retrieving concepts from long-term memory. In all, by giving insights into how language-driven simulation meshes with the reader’s evaluative responses during an unfolding narrative, this study contributes to the understanding of affective language comprehension. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-13T22:50:43Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-dba29f8626034cfbb58c48af3b96b9dc |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-13T22:50:43Z |
| publishDate | 2019-02-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-dba29f8626034cfbb58c48af3b96b9dc2022-12-22T02:26:13ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782019-02-011010.3389/fpsyg.2019.00318420828Tracking Affective Language Comprehension: Simulating and Evaluating Character Affect in Morally Loaded NarrativesBjörn ‘t Hart0Marijn E. Struiksma1Anton van Boxtel2Jos J. A. van Berkum3Department of Languages, Literature, and Communication, Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS, Utrecht University, Utrecht, NetherlandsDepartment of Languages, Literature, and Communication, Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS, Utrecht University, Utrecht, NetherlandsDepartment of Cognitive Neuropsychology, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Tilburg University, Tilburg, NetherlandsDepartment of Languages, Literature, and Communication, Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS, Utrecht University, Utrecht, NetherlandsFacial electromyography research shows that corrugator supercilii (“frowning muscle”) activity tracks the emotional valence of linguistic stimuli. Grounded or embodied accounts of language processing take such activity to reflect the simulation or “re-enactment” of emotion, as part of the retrieval of word meaning (e.g., of “furious”) and/or of building a situation model (e.g., for “Mark is furious”). However, the same muscle also expresses our primary emotional evaluation of things we encounter. Language-driven affective simulation can easily be at odds with the reader’s affective evaluation of what language describes (e.g., when we like Mark being furious). In a previous experiment (‘t Hart et al., 2018) we demonstrated that neither language-driven simulation nor affective evaluation alone seem sufficient to explain the corrugator patterns that emerge during online language comprehension in these complex cases. Those results showed support for a multiple-drivers account of corrugator activity, where both simulation and evaluation processes contribute to the activation patterns observed in the corrugator. The study at hand replicates and extends these findings. With more refined control over when precisely affective information became available in a narrative, we again find results that speak against an interpretation of corrugator activity in terms of simulation or evaluation alone, and as such support the multiple-drivers account. Additional evidence suggests that the simulation driver involved reflects simulation at the level of situation model construction, rather than at the level of retrieving concepts from long-term memory. In all, by giving insights into how language-driven simulation meshes with the reader’s evaluative responses during an unfolding narrative, this study contributes to the understanding of affective language comprehension.https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00318/fullcorrugator EMGgrounded cognitionnarrativeemotionembodimentaffective language |
| spellingShingle | Björn ‘t Hart Marijn E. Struiksma Anton van Boxtel Jos J. A. van Berkum Tracking Affective Language Comprehension: Simulating and Evaluating Character Affect in Morally Loaded Narratives Frontiers in Psychology corrugator EMG grounded cognition narrative emotion embodiment affective language |
| title | Tracking Affective Language Comprehension: Simulating and Evaluating Character Affect in Morally Loaded Narratives |
| title_full | Tracking Affective Language Comprehension: Simulating and Evaluating Character Affect in Morally Loaded Narratives |
| title_fullStr | Tracking Affective Language Comprehension: Simulating and Evaluating Character Affect in Morally Loaded Narratives |
| title_full_unstemmed | Tracking Affective Language Comprehension: Simulating and Evaluating Character Affect in Morally Loaded Narratives |
| title_short | Tracking Affective Language Comprehension: Simulating and Evaluating Character Affect in Morally Loaded Narratives |
| title_sort | tracking affective language comprehension simulating and evaluating character affect in morally loaded narratives |
| topic | corrugator EMG grounded cognition narrative emotion embodiment affective language |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00318/full |
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