Affective and concreteness norms for 3,022 Croatian words

Affective norms for 501 Chinese words from three emotional dimensions rated by depressive disorder patients

Introduction

Emotional words are often used as stimulus material to explore the cognitive and emotional characteristics of individuals with depressive disorder, while normal individuals mostly rate the scores of affective words. Given that individuals with depressive disorder exhibit a negative cognitive bias, it is possible that their depressive state could influence the ratings of affective words. To enhance the validity of the stimulus material, we specifically recruited patients with depression to provide these ratings.

Methods

This study provided subjective ratings for 501 Chinese affective norms, incorporating 167 negative words selected from depressive disorder patients' Sino Weibo blogs, and 167 neutral words and 167 positive words selected from the Chinese Affective Word System. The norms are based on the assessments made by 91 patients with depressive disorder and 92 normal individuals, by using the paper-and-pencil quiz on a 9-point scale.

Results

Regardless of the group, the results show high reliability and validity. We identified group differences in three dimensions: valence, arousal, and self-relevance: the depression group rated negative words higher, but positive and neutral words lower than the normal control group.

Conclusion

The emotional perception affected the individual's perception of words, to some extent, this database expanded the ratings and provided a reference for exploring norms for individuals with different emotional states.

Validation of the open biological negative image set for a Portuguese population: Comparing Japanese and Portuguese samples and an exploration of low-order visual properties of the stimuli

Recently, Shirai and Watanabe Royal Society Open Science, 9(1), 211128 (2022) developed OBNIS (Open Biological Negative Image Set), a comprehensive database containing images (primarily animals but also fruits, mushrooms, and vegetables) that visually elicit disgust, fear, or neither. OBNIS was initially validated for a Japanese population. In this article, we validated the color version of OBNIS for a Portuguese population. In study 1, the methodology of the original article was used. This allowed direct comparisons between the Portuguese and Japanese populations. Aside from a few emotional classification mismatches between disgust, fear, or neither-related images, we found that arousal and valence relate distinctively in both populations. In contrast to the Japanese sample, the Portuguese reported increased arousal for more positive valenced stimuli, suggesting that OBNIS images elicit positive emotions in the Portuguese population. These results showed important cross-cultural differences regarding OBNIS. In study 2, a methodological change was introduced: instead of the three classification options used originally (fear, disgust, or neither), six basic emotions were used (fear, disgust, sadness, surprise, anger, happiness), and a "neither" option, to confirm whether some of the originally "neither-related" images are associated with positive emotions (happiness). Additionally, the low-order visual properties of images (luminosity, contrast, chromatic complexity, and spatial frequency distribution) were explored due to their important role in emotion-related research. A fourth image group associated with happiness was found in the Portuguese sample. Moreover, image groups present differences regarding the low-order visual characteristics, which are correlated with arousal and valence ratings, highlighting the importance of controlling such characteristics in emotion-related research.

Concreteness ratings for 36,000 Estonian words

We present a collection of concreteness ratings for 35,979 words in Estonian. The data were collected via a web application from 2278 native Estonian speakers. Human ratings of concreteness have not been collected for Estonian beforehand. We compare our results to Aedmaa et al. (2018), who assigned concreteness ratings to 240,000 Estonian words by means of machine learning. We show that while these two datasets show reasonable correlation (R = 0.71), there are considerable differences in the distribution of the ratings, which we discuss in this paper. Furthermore, the results also raise questions about the importance of the type of scale used for collecting ratings. While most other datasets have been compiled based on questionnaires entailing five- or seven-point Likert scales, we used a continuous 0-10 scale. Comparing our rating distribution to those of other studies, we found that it is most similar to the distribution in Lahl et al. (Behavior Research Methods, 41(1), 13-19, 2009), who also used a 0-10 scale. Concreteness ratings for Estonian words are available at OSF .

CROWD-5e: A Croatian psycholinguistic database of affective norms for five discrete emotions

The present study introduces affective norms for a set of 3022 Croatian words on five discrete emotions: happiness, anger, sadness, fear, and disgust. The words were rated by 1239 Croatian native speakers. Each participant rated 251 or 252 words for one discrete emotion on a five-point Likert scale. The analyses revealed a significant relationship between discrete emotions, emotional dimensions (valence and arousal), and other psycholinguistic properties of words. In addition, small sex differences in discrete emotion ratings were found. Finally, the analysis of the distribution of words among discrete emotions allowed a distinction between "pure" words (i.e., those mostly related to a single emotion) and "mixed" words (i.e., those related to more than one emotion). The new database extends the existing Croatian affective norms collected from a dimensional conception of emotions, providing the necessary resource for future experimental investigation in Croatian within the theoretical framework of discrete emotions.

The good, the bad, and the ambivalent: Extrapolating affective values for 38,000+ Chinese words via a computational model

Word affective ratings are important tools in psycholinguistic research, natural language processing, and many other fields. However, even for well-studied languages, such norms are usually limited in scale. To extrapolate affective (i.e., valence and arousal) values for words in the SUBTLEX-CH database (Cai & Brysbaert, 2010, PLoS ONE, 5(6):e10729), we implemented a computational neural network which captured how words' vector-based semantic representations corresponded to the probability densities of their valence and arousal. Based on these probability density functions, we predicted not only a word's affective values, but also their respective degrees of variability that could characterize individual differences in human affective ratings. The resulting estimates of affective values largely converged with human ratings for both valence and arousal, and the estimated degrees of variability also captured important features of the variability in human ratings. We released the extrapolated affective values, together with their corresponding degrees of variability, for over 38,000 Chinese words in the Open Science Framework ( https://osf.io/s9zmd/ ). We also discussed how the view of embodied cognition could be illuminated by this computational model.

CONcreTEXT norms: Concreteness ratings for Italian and English words in context

Concreteness is a fundamental dimension of word semantic representation that has attracted more and more interest to become one of the most studied variables in the psycholinguistic and cognitive neuroscience literature in the last decade. Concreteness effects have been found at both the brain and the behavioral levels, but they may vary depending on the constraints of the context and task demands. In this study, we collected concreteness norms for English and Italian words presented in different context sentences to allow better control and manipulation of concreteness in future psycholinguistic research. First, we observed high split-half correlations and Cronbach's alpha coefficients, suggesting that our ratings were highly reliable and can be used in Italian- and English-speaking populations. Second, our data indicate that the concreteness ratings are related to the lexical density and accessibility of the sentence in both English and Italian. We also found that the concreteness of words in isolation was highly correlated with that of words in context. Finally, we analyzed differences between nouns and verbs in concreteness ratings without significant effects. Our new concreteness norms of words in context are a valuable source of information for future research in both the English and Italian language. The complete database is available on the Open Science Framework (doi: 10.17605/OSF.IO/U3PC4).

ANCW: Affective norms for 4030 Chinese words

Affective information contained in words is gaining increased attention among neurolinguists and psycholinguists around the world. This study established the Affective Norms for Chinese Words (ANCW) with valence, arousal, dominance, and concreteness ratings for 4030 words that were Chinese adaptations of the CET-4 (The National College English Test Band 4) official syllabus. Despite the existing Chinese affective norms such as the Chinese Affective Words System (CAWS), the ANCW provides much more and richer Chinese vocabulary. By using 7-point (ranging from 1 to 7) Likert scales in a paper-and-pencil procedure, we obtained ratings for all variables from 3717 Chinese undergraduates. The ANCW norms possessed good response reliability and were compatible with prior normative studies in Chinese. The pairwise correlation analysis revealed quadratic relations between valence and arousal, arousal and dominance, as well as valence and concreteness. Additionally, valence and dominance, as well as arousal and concreteness, presented a linear correlation, and concreteness and dominance were correlated. The ANCW provides reliable and standardized stimulus materials for further research involving emotional language processing.

The influence of word concreteness on acquired positive emotion association: An event-related potential study

The ability to acquire positive emotions from words is essential to psychological well-being. How word concreteness affects the process of positive emotion acquisition remains unknown. Here, using an evaluation conditioning paradigm, participants learned the association between pseudowords and concrete/abstract and positive/neutral words. Behavior and event-related potential data were recorded while participants performed emotional recognition tasks. Behavioral results showed that, for neutral words, concrete words were more accurate than abstract words, whereas for positive words, abstract words were more accurate than concrete words. Moreover, N1 and P2 amplitudes in the pseudowords were modulated by interacting word emotion and concreteness. Specifically, pseudowords associated with neutral concrete words elicited larger N1 and P2 amplitudes than pseudowords associated with neutral abstract words. Conversely, N1 and P2 amplitudes in pseudowords associated with positive abstract words were not significant compared to those in positive concrete words. Additionally, an emotional effect was observed when pseudowords were associated with abstract words, showing higher P3 amplitude for the pseudowords associated with positive abstract words than neutral abstract words. No significant effects were found for the pseudowords associated with positive abstract or concrete words. These findings suggest that association learning may influence the early attention processing of emotion acquisition from words, and emotional information of positive abstract words might boost positive emotion acquisition, thereby eliminating the acquisition advantage from positive concrete words.

The bright side of words: Norms for 9000 Spanish words in seven discrete positive emotions

In recent years, assumptions about the existence of a single construct of happiness that accounts for all positive emotions have been questioned. Instead, several discrete positive emotions with their own neurobiological and psychological mechanisms have been proposed. Of note, the effects of positive emotions on language processing are not yet properly understood. Here we provide a database for a large set of 9000 Spanish words scored by 3437 participants in the positive emotions of awe, contentment, amusement, excitement, serenity, relief, and pleasure. We also report significant correlations between discrete positive emotions and several affective (e.g., valence, arousal, happiness, negative discrete emotions) and lexico-semantic (e.g., frequency of use, familiarity, concreteness, age of acquisition) characteristics of words. Finally, we analyze differences between words conveying a single emotion ("pure" emotion words) and those denoting more than one emotion ("mixed" emotion words). This study will provide researchers a rich source of information to do research that contributes to expanding the current knowledge on the role of positive emotions in language. The norms are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.21533571.v2.

Abstract concepts and emotion: cross-linguistic evidence and arguments against affective embodiment

How are abstract concepts such as 'freedom' and 'democracy' represented in the mind? One prominent proposal suggests that abstract concepts are grounded in emotion. Supporting this 'affective embodiment' account, abstract concepts are rated to be more strongly positive or more strongly negative than concrete concepts. This paper demonstrates that this finding generalizes across languages by synthesizing rating data from Cantonese, Mandarin Chinese, Croatian, Dutch, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Polish and Spanish. However, a deeper look at the same data suggests that the idea of emotional grounding only characterizes a small subset of abstract concepts. Moreover, when the concreteness/abstractness dimension is not operationalized using concreteness ratings, it is actually found that concrete concepts are rated as more emotional than abstract ones. Altogether, these results suggest limitations to the idea that emotion is an important factor in the grounding of abstract concepts. This article is part of the theme issue 'Concepts in interaction: social engagement and inner experiences'.

Valence and arousal ratings for 11,310 simplified Chinese words

This study reports valence and arousal ratings for 11,310 simplified Chinese words, including 9774 two-character words, 949 three-character words, and 587 four-character words. These affective ratings are validated through comparisons with prior ratings of smaller word samples. All but four words included in this study are from the MEgastudy of Lexical Decision in Simplified CHinese (MELD-SCH) database. As age-of-acquisition ratings and concreteness ratings have recently become available for large portions of words in the MELD-SCH, the affective ratings not only further enrich the database as a valuable research tool, but also allow us to gain insight into a range of psycholinguistic constructs based on normative ratings of a large set of Chinese words. Cross-language comparisons of the valence ratings between Chinese words and English words appear to indicate cultural and sociopolitical influences reflected in affect representations.

The Croatian psycholinguistic database: Estimates for 6000 nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs

Psycholinguistic databases containing ratings of concreteness, imageability, age of acquisition, and subjective frequency are used in psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic studies which require words as stimuli. Linguistic characteristics (e.g. word length, corpus frequency) are frequently coded, but word class is seldom systematically treated, although there are indications of its significance for imageability and concreteness. This paper presents the Croatian Psycholinguistic Database (CPD; available at: https://doi.org/10.17234/megahr.2019.hpb ), containing 6000 Croatian nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, rated for concreteness, imageability, age of acquisition, and subjective frequency. Moreover, we present computationally obtained extrapolations of concreteness and imageability to the remainder of the Croatian lexicon (available at: https://github.com/megahr/lexicon/blob/master/predictions/hr_c_i.predictions.txt ). In the two studies presented here, we explore the significance of word class for concreteness and imageability in human and computationally obtained ratings. The observed correlations in the CPD indicate correspondences between psycholinguistic measures expected from the literature. Word classes exhibit differences in subjective frequency, age of acquisition, concreteness and imageability, with significant differences between nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. In the computational study which focused on concreteness and imageability, concreteness obtained higher correlations with human ratings than imageability, and the system underpredicted the concreteness of nouns, and overpredicted the concreteness of adjectives and adverbs. Overall, this suggests that word class contains schematic conceptual and distributional information. Schematic conceptual content seems to be more significant in human ratings of concreteness and less significant in computationally obtained ratings, where distributional information seems to play a more significant role. This suggests that word class differences should be theoretically explored.

Spanish affective normative data for 1,406 words rated by children and adolescents (SANDchild)

Most research on the relationship between emotion and language in children relies on the use of words whose affective properties have been assessed by adults. To overcome this limitation, in the current study we introduce SANDchild, the Spanish affective database for children. This dataset reports ratings in the valence and the arousal dimensions for a large corpus of 1406 Spanish words rated by a large sample of 1276 children and adolescents from four different age groups (7, 9, 11 and 13 years old). We observed high inter-rater reliabilities for both valence and arousal in the four age groups. However, some age differences were found. In this sense, ratings for both valence and arousal decreased with age. Furthermore, the youngest children consider more words to be positive than adolescents. We also found sex differences in valence scores since boys gave higher valence ratings than girls, while girls considered more words to be negative than boys. The norms provided in this database will allow us to further extend our knowledge on the acquisition, development and processing of emotional language from childhood to adolescence. The complete database can be downloaded from https://psico.fcep.urv.cat/exp/files/SANDchild.xlsx .

Iconicity ratings for 10,995 Spanish words and their relationship with psycholinguistic variables

The study of iconicity, or the resemblance between word forms and their meanings, has been the focus of increasing attention in recent years. Nevertheless, there is a lack of large-scale normative studies on the iconic properties of words, which could prove crucial to expanding our understanding of form-meaning associations. In this work, we report subjective iconicity ratings for 10,995 visually presented Spanish words from 1350 participants who were asked to repeat each of the words aloud before rating them. The response reliability and the consistency between the present and previous ratings were good. The relationships between iconicity and several psycholinguistic variables were examined through multiple regression analyses. We found that sensory experience ratings were the main predictor of iconicity, and that early-acquired and more abstract words received higher iconicity scores. We also found that onomatopoeias and interjections were the most iconic words, followed by adjectives. Finally, a follow-up study was conducted in which a subsample of 360 words with different levels of iconicity from the visual presentation study was auditorily presented to the participants. A high correlation was observed between the iconicity scores in the visual and auditory presentations. The normative data provided in this database might prove useful in expanding the body of knowledge on issues such as the processing of the iconic properties of words and the role of word-form associations in the acquisition of vocabularies. The database can be downloaded from https://osf.io/v5er3/ .

Concreteness/abstractness ratings for two-character Chinese words in MELD-SCH

The concreteness-abstractness continuum is considered a primary dimension in the representation of semantic networks. Its theoretical importance and clinical significance are widely acknowledged. To assist and enhance future research, this study collected and evaluated concreteness/abstractness ratings for 9,877 two-character Chinese words retrieved from the MEga study of Lexical Decision in Simplified CHinese (MELD-SCH, Tsang et al, 2018). The ratings were validated through comparisons with previous rating studies on concreteness and imageability of smaller word samples. Relations of word concreteness with word frequency, age-of-acquisition, and efficiency of lexical processing were also examined. These ratings provide an additional dimension of information to two-character words in the database MELD-SCH, permitting not only more comprehensive research on the Chinese language, but also cross-language investigation of the concreteness effect between Chinese and other languages such as English and Dutch where a large database of concreteness ratings is also available.