Neural Correlates of Task-Irrelevant First and Second Language Emotion Words - Evidence from the Emotional Face-Word Stroop Task

Emotional congruency between faces and words benefits emotional judgments in women: An event-related potential study

The present study aimed to investigate the effects of emotional congruency between faces and words on word evaluation through event-related brain potentials (ERPs). To this end, 20 women performed a face-word congruency task in which an emotional face was presented simultaneously with an affective word in a non-superimposed format. Participants had to evaluate the emotional valence of the word in three different conditions: congruent, incongruent, and control. The emotionally congruent words were categorized faster and more accurately than the incongruent ones. In addition, the emotionally congruent words elicited higher P3/LPP amplitudes than the incongruent ones. These results indicate a beneficial effect of emotional face-word congruency on emotional judgments of words.

Multimodality in language education: implications of a multimodal affective perspective in foreign language teaching

Foreign language learners often encounter various emotional challenges within academic environments, which can hinder their progress in developing literacy skills. Effective language instruction should encompass teaching approaches that acknowledge the emotional requirements of students. To address this need, we propose a multimodal affective methodology designed to evaluate emotions in foreign language education scenarios. This methodology also holds the potential to elucidate the pedagogic contributions of various emotional variables to academic outcomes. Our study focuses on German as a foreign language (GFL) learning and utilizes it as an example to investigate ways to improve writing proficiency. The study explores the effects of integrating multimodal corrective feedback (MCF) into academic writing exercises. We delve into suitable modalities for analyzing emotions in academic writing practices. Furthermore, we investigate how the choice of corrective feedback mode intricately influences the nature of feedback itself and subsequently influences students' emotional responses. Through a comprehensive exploration of the interplay between distinct modes of delivering feedback and their impacts on learners' engagement, this investigation strives to decode the intricate dynamics of emotions that underlie language acquisition. With these insights, the study discusses how teachers can enhance their teaching strategies by combining changes in learners' emotional states and providing emotional support.

fMRI evidence reveals emotional biases in bilingual decision making

Research indicates that the foreign language effect on decision making can be partially explained by a reduction in emotional response in the second language. In this fMRI study, we aimed at elucidating the neural mechanisms underpinning the interaction between language and emotion in decision making. Across multiple trials, Chinese-English bilinguals were asked to decide whether to gamble in a Gambling task, and received feedbacks either in L1 (Chinese) or in L2 (English). If they gambled, feedbacks were either positively or negatively valenced words; if they did not gamble, feedback was the word 'safe'. We assessed how emotionally valenced words were processed in the two languages, and how this processing influenced subsequent decision making. Overall, we found evidence that in L2 context, but not in L1 context, loss aversion was mediated by the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) which also showed strong functional connectivity with the visual cortex, suggesting an avoidance mechanism for negative stimuli in L2. However, we also found an enhanced response to positive feedbacks in L2 compared to L1, as evidenced by greater activation of the hippocampus for win feedbacks compared to safe feedbacks in L2, eventually resulting in a greater tendency to gamble. Thus, foreign language influenced decision making by both regulating emotional response to negative stimuli and enhancing emotional response to positive stimuli. This study helps unveiling the neural bases of the interaction between language and emotion in the foreign language context.

The Relationships Among Testosterone, Cortisol, and Cognitive Control of Emotion as Underlying Mechanisms of Emotional Intelligence of 10- to 11-Year-Old Children

Emotional intelligence is an important factor contributing to social adaptation. The current study investigated how salivary testosterone (T) and cortisol (C) levels, cognitive control of emotional conflict processing were associated with children's emotional intelligence (EI). Thirty-four 10- to 11-year-old children were enrolled and instructed to complete questionnaires on emotional intelligence as well as empirical tasks of emotional flanker and Stroop with event-related potential (ERP) recordings. Saliva collection took place on another day without ERP tasks. Results showed that lower T and C levels were associated with higher accuracy in emotional conflict tasks, as well as better emotional intelligence (managing self emotions). In the Stroop task, higher T/C ratios were associated with greater congruency effects of N2 latencies, and lower cortisol levels correlated with stronger slow potential activities (SP). For girls, the correlation between cortisol and emotional utilization was mediated by the SP amplitudes on fearful conflicts in the flanker task (95% CI: -8.64, -0.54, p < 0.050). In conclusion, the current study found the relationship between cortisol and an emotional intelligence ability, emotional utilization, might be mediated by brain activities during emotional conflict resolution processing (SP responses) in preadolescent girls. Future studies could further investigate testosterone-cortisol interaction and its relation with cognitive control of emotion as underlying mechanisms of emotional intelligence.

Pupillary responses to affective words in bilinguals' first versus second language

Late bilinguals often report less emotional involvement in their second language, a phenomenon called reduced emotional resonance in L2. The present study measured pupil dilation in response to high- versus low-arousing words (e.g., riot vs. swamp) in German-English and Finnish-English late bilinguals, both in their first and in their second language. A third sample of English monolingual speakers (tested only in English) served as a control group. To improve on previous research, we controlled for lexical confounds such as length, frequency, emotional valence, and abstractness–both within and across languages. Results showed no appreciable differences in post-trial word recognition judgements (98% recognition on average), but reliably stronger pupillary effects of the arousal manipulation when stimuli were presented in participants’ first rather than second language. This supports the notion of reduced emotional resonance in L2. Our findings are unlikely to be due to differences in stimulus-specific control variables or to potential word-recognition difficulties in participants’ second language. Linguistic relatedness between first and second language (German-English vs. Finnish-English) was also not found to have a modulating influence.

Electrophysiological Characteristics in Depressive Personality Disorder: An Event-Related Potential Study

This study aimed to investigate the neurophysiological characteristics of young people with depressive personality disorder using event-related potentials (ERP). To explore the effects of visual-emotional words on ERP, mainly N350, we recruited 19 individuals with a depressive personality disorder and 10 healthy controls. ERP were recorded while the subjects took decisions on target words that were classified into three categories: emotionally positive, negative, and neutral. The ERP signals were then separately averaged according to the subjects' classifications. Data analysis showed that the amplitude of N350 was larger in response to positive and negative words than to neutral words. The latency of N350 was longer in negative words, in contrast with positive and neutral words. However, no difference was found between the two groups. These results suggest that neurophysiological characteristics of young people with a depressive personality disorder in visual-emotional word processing have not yet been influenced by their personality traits. To some extent, N350 reflected semantic processes and was not sensitive to participants' mood state.