Abstract
In an event-related potential experiment, we investigated how the amount and the location of emotional cues in the context influenced readers’ perception of emotional arousal during reading comprehension. Participants read short narratives in which the amount of emotional cues and the location of emotional cues varied across conditions: a) the context contained two emotional cues, b) the context contained one emotional cue in the second sentence, c) the context contained one emotional cue in the first sentence, and d) the context contained no emotional cue. Our results showed that compared with contexts including one or no emotional cue, contexts including two emotional cues elicited a higher level of emotional arousal, as reflected by a larger anterior distributed LPP effect. However, the location of the emotional cue was found to have no effect on emotional arousal.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Gernsbacher, M.A., Goldsmith, H.H., Robertson, R.R.W.: Do Readers Mentally Represent Characters’ Emotional States? Cognition and Emotion 6, 89–111 (1992)
de Vega, M., León, I., Díaz, J.M.: The Representation of Changing Emotions in Reading Comprehension. Cognition and Emotion 10, 303–321 (1996)
de Vega, M., Díaz, J.M., León, I.: To Know or Not to Know: Belief-Based Emotional Inferences in Comprehension. Discourse Processes 23, 169–192 (1997)
Gygax, P., Garnham, A., Oakhill, J.: Inferring Characters’ Emotional States: Can Readers Infer Specific Emotions? Language and Cognitive Processes 19, 613–639 (2004)
León, I., Díaz, J.M., de Vega, M., Hernández, J.A.: Discourse-Based Emotional Consistency Modulates Early and Middle Components of Event-Related Potentials. Emotion 10(6), 863–873 (2010)
Holt, D.J., Lynn, S.K., Kuperberg, G.R.: Neurophysiological Correlates of Comprehending Emotional Meaning in Context. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 21(11), 2245–2262 (2008)
Binder, K.S., Morris, R.K.: Eye Movements and Lexical Ambiguity Resolution: Effects of Prior Encounter and Discourse Topic. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 21(5), 1186–1196 (1995)
O’Brien, E.J., Duffy, S.A., Myers, J.L.: Anaphoric Inference during Reading. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 12(3), 346–352 (1986)
Kuperberg, G.R.: Neural Mechanisms of Language Comprehension: Challenges to Syntax. Brain Research 1146, 23–49 (2007)
Herbert, C., Junghofer, M., Kissler, J.: Event Related Potentials to Emotional Adjectives during Reading. Psychophysiology 45(3), 487–498 (2008)
Kissler, J., Herbert, C., Winkler, I., Junghofer, M.: Emotion and Attention in Visual Word Processing—An ERP Study. Biological Psychology 80, 75–83 (2009)
Cuthbert, B.N., Schupp, H.T., Bradley, M.M., Birbaumer, N., Lang, P.J.: Brain Potentials in Affective Picture Processing: Covariation with Autonomic Arousal and Affective Report. Biological Psychology 52(2), 95–111 (2000)
Schupp, H.T., Cuthbert, B.N., Bradley, M.M., Cacioppo, J.T., Ito, T., Lang, P.J.: Affective Picture Processing: the Late Positive Potential Is Modulated by Motivational Relevance. Psychophysiology 37(2), 257–261 (2000)
Schupp, H.T., Cuthbert, B.N., Bradley, M.M., Hillman, C.H., Hamm, A.O., Lang, P.J.: Brain Processes in Emotional Perception: Motivated Attention. Cognition and Emotion 18(5), 593–611 (2004)
Schupp, H.T., Junghofer, M., Weike, A.I., Hamm, A.O.: Emotional Facilitation of Sensory Processing in the Visual Cortex. Psychological Science 14(1), 7–13 (2003)
Schupp, H.T., Ohman, A., Junghofer, M., Weike, A.I., Stockburger, J., Hamm, A.O.: The Facilitated Processing of Threatening Faces: An ERP Analysis. Emotion 4(2), 189–200 (2004)
Semlitsch, H.V., Anderer, P., Schuster, P., Presslich, O.: A Solution for Reliable and Valid Reduction of Ocular Rrtifacts, Applied to the P300 ERP. Psychophysiology 23(6), 695–703 (1986)
Cacioppo, J.T., Crites, S.L., Berntson, G.G., Coles, M.G.H.: If Attitudes Affect How Stimuli Are Processed, Should They Not Affect the Event-Related Brain Potential? Psychol. Sci. 4, 108–112 (1993)
Cacioppo, J.T., Crites, S.L., Gardner, W.L., Berntson, G.G.: Bioelectrical echoes from evaluative categorizations: I. A Late Positive Brain Potentials that Varies as A Function of Trait Negativity and Extremity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67, 115–125 (1994)
De Pascalis, V., Strippoli, E., Riccardi, P.: Personality, Event–Related Potential (ERP) and Heart Rate (HR) in Emotional Word Processing. Pers. Individ. Diff. 36, 873–891 (2004)
Baetensa, K., Van der Cruyssena, L., Achtzigerb, A., Vandekerckhovea, M., Van Overwallea, F.: N400 and LPP in Spontaneous Trait Inferences. Brain Research 1418, 83–92 (2011)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Zhang, J., Yang, X., Yang, Y. (2013). How Do Emotional Cues Modulate Readers’ Perception of Emotional Arousal during Text Comprehension: An ERP Study. In: Liu, D., Alippi, C., Zhao, D., Hussain, A. (eds) Advances in Brain Inspired Cognitive Systems. BICS 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 7888. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38786-9_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38786-9_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-38785-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-38786-9
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)