Schmuck Jonas, Schnuerch Robert, Voltz Emely, Kirsten Hannah, Gibbons Henning
Department of Psychology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.
Psychophysiology. 2025 Jan;62(1):e14748. doi: 10.1111/psyp.14748.
Using event-related potentials, it was found that selective attention to valence facilitates early affective discrimination of words with task-relevant valence and inhibits affective processing of words with task-irrelevant valence. This attention-based modulation of affective processing presumably relies on prior associative learning linking visual word forms with their affects. To investigate this hypothesis, we employed a valence-detection task and manipulated lexical (length, frequency) and affective (arousal) word features. Since we assumed that these features strongly influence the strength of visual form-affect associations, we expected them to play a crucial role in early affective discrimination. Fifty-eight participants made speeded responses only to words of one predefined target level of valence (negative, neutral, or positive), which varied across three blocks. As expected, the visual P1 component yielded greater valence discrimination for the target than for nontarget words. This interactive effect was most prominent for short, high-frequency and low-arousal words, respectively. Regarding the N170 component, low-frequency words showed higher amplitudes when they were either positive low-arousing or negative high-arousing compared with the other two sets of words, independently of target status. Additionally, an average-referenced EPN-like posterior negativity (150-270 ms) revealed a target-independent interaction between valence and arousal and increased amplitudes for negative target words. Results extend previous research in showing that particularly short and highly frequent valent word forms can be tuned by selective attention to valence, facilitating early affective discrimination. Finally, findings support the notion that valence and arousal interact during early preattentive, bottom-up processing which is interpreted within the valence-arousal conflict theory.
利用事件相关电位发现，对效价的选择性注意促进了对具有任务相关效价的单词的早期情感辨别，并抑制了对具有任务无关效价的单词的情感加工。这种基于注意的情感加工调节可能依赖于先前将视觉单词形式与其情感联系起来的联想学习。为了研究这一假设，我们采用了效价检测任务，并操纵了词汇（长度、频率）和情感（唤醒）单词特征。由于我们假设这些特征强烈影响视觉形式 - 情感联想的强度，我们预期它们在早期情感辨别中起关键作用。58名参与者仅对一个预定义的目标效价水平（负性、中性或正性）的单词做出快速反应，该效价水平在三个组块中变化。正如预期的那样，视觉P1成分对目标单词的效价辨别比对非目标单词更强。这种交互效应分别在短单词、高频单词和低唤醒单词中最为显著。关于N170成分，低频单词在为正性低唤醒或负性高唤醒时，与其他两组单词相比显示出更高的波幅，与目标状态无关。此外，平均参考的类似EPN的后部负波（150 - 270毫秒）揭示了效价和唤醒之间与目标无关的交互作用，以及负性目标单词的波幅增加。结果扩展了先前的研究，表明特别是短的和高频的效价单词形式可以通过对效价的选择性注意进行调整，促进早期情感辨别。最后，研究结果支持了效价和唤醒在早期前注意的自下而上加工过程中相互作用的观点，这一观点在效价 - 唤醒冲突理论中得到了解释。
