In this paper, we introduce anaffective variant of the Simon paradigm. Three experiments are reported in which nouns and adjectives with a positive, negative, or neutral affective meaning were used as stimuli. Depending on the grammatical category of the presented word (i.e. noun or adjective), participants had to respond as fast as possible by saying a predetermined positive or negative word. In Experiments 1 and 2, the words POSITIVE and NEGATIVE were required as responses, in Experiment 3, FLOWER and CANCER (...) were used as response words. Despite the fact that participants were explicitly instructed to ignore the affective meaning of the presented words, reaction times were faster when the affective connotation of the presented word and the correct response was the same than when it differed. The results lendfurther support tothe hypothesis that stimulus valence can be processed automatically. We also argue that the affective Simon paradigm can be used as a flexible tool for the study of affective-processing and discuss how other variants of the Simon paradigm can be developed to stimulate research on other aspects of information-processing. (shrink)

Trolley dilemmas have been tested cross-culturally, but only recently have researchers begun to assess the effect of responding to such dilemmas in a foreign language. Previous studies have found a Moral Foreign Language Effect in trolley dilemmas, whereby subjects who respond to these dilemmas in a foreign language, tend to offer more utilitarian responses. The present study seeks to test whether the MFLE holds amongst native speakers of Arabic. Additionally, the present study seeks to test whether the use of visual (...) images has any effect on responses. For such purposes, four groups were compared: 1) participants responding to trolley dilemmas in English without visual images; 2) participants responding to trolley dilemmas in Arabic without visual images; 3) participants responding to trolley dilemmas in English with visual images; 4) participants responding to trolley dilemmas in Arabic with visual images. (shrink)

Emotion modulates our time perception. So far, the relationship between emotion and time perception has been examined with visible emotional stimuli. The present study investigated whether invisible emotional stimuli affected time perception. Using continuous flash suppression, which is a kind of dynamic interocular masking, supra-threshold emotional pictures were masked or unmasked depending on whether the retinal position of continuous flashes on one eye was consistent with that of the pictures on the other eye. Observers were asked to reproduce the perceived (...) duration of a frame stimulus that was concurrently presented with a masked or unmasked emotional picture. As a result, negative emotional stimuli elongated the perceived duration of the frame stimulus in comparison with positive and neutral emotional stimuli, regardless of the visibility of emotional pictures. These results suggest that negative emotion unconsciously accelerates an internal clock, altering time perception. (shrink)

Firstly, this paper aims to analyze how verbal and visual modes contribute to build two basic components of cartoons: the referenced situation and the fictional situation. Secondly, it aims to unravel the semiotics of this discursive genre by offering a fine-grained picture of modal variations and continuities of the rhetorical resources deployed, by means of which the fictional situation is displayed. The corpus is composed of 50 multimodal cartoons chosen by cartoonists of 22 nationalities as the most representative of their (...) work in the frame of a wide questionnaire. Category analysis and non-parametric statistics were applied. We identified and fleshed out four different types of modal functioning of resources: visual preference, verbal preference, modal flexibility, and genuine multimodal functioning. Even if visual and multimodal metaphor were often in charge of transferring meaning from fiction to the referenced situation, results show that other resources such as antithesis, irony, and syllepsis can become the key resources of cartoons. Findings highlight the multilayered functioning of cartoons, among which plastic features can play a significant role, and provide further evidence in favor of the hyperdetermination of humor hypothesis proposed by Attardo. (shrink)

The current study attended to predict L2 lexical attrition by means of a Decision Tree model in three emotional dimensions, that is, the valence dimension, the arousal dimension, and the dominance dimension. A sample of 188 participants whose L1 was Chinese and L2 was English performed a recognition test of 500 words for measuring the L2 lexical attrition. The findings explored by the Decision Tree model indicated that L2 lexical attrition could be predicted in all the three emotional dimensions in (...) two aspects: among the three emotional dimensions, the valence dimension was the most powerful in predicting L2 lexical attrition, followed successively by the dominance dimension and the arousal dimension; most of the neutral words in the three emotional dimensions were predicted to be inferior to emotional words in L2 attrition. In addition, the modified Revised Hierarchical Model for emotion could be adopted to justify the modulation of the emotion–memory effects upon L2 lexical attrition. (shrink)

We investigated whether motivationally determined stimulus valence can be processed in an automatic way, as is assumed in many appraisal theories (e.g., Frijda, 1986, 1993; Lazarus, 1991; Scherer, 1993a). Whereas appraisal theorists typically use conscious self-report methods to investigate their assumptions, our experiments used indirect experimental methods that leave less room for deliberate, conscious reflections of the participants. Using variants of the affective priming and Simon paradigms, we demonstrated that intrinsically neutral, but wanted stimuli facilitated responses with a positive valence, (...) whereas intrinsically neutral, but unwanted stimuli facilitated negative responses. In addition, the second experiment proved to be supportive of another assumption made by appraisal theorists according to which a relation exits between different (automatic) outcomes of motivational appraisal (positive-negative) and different action tendencies (approach-withdrawal). (shrink)

ABSTRACTRemembering to perform a behaviour in the future, prospective memory, is essential to ensuring that people fulfil their intentions. Prospective memory involves committing to memory a cue to action, and later recognising and acting upon the cue in the environment. Prospective memory performance is believed to be influenced by the emotionality of the cues, however the literature is fragmented and inconsistent. We conducted a systematic search to synthesise research on the influence of emotion on prospective memory. Sixty-seven effect sizes were (...) extracted from 17 articles and hypothesised effects tested using three meta-analyses. Overall, prospective memory was enhanced when positively-valenced rather than neutral cues were presented. In contrast, negatively-valenced cues did not enhance prospective memory overall, but this effect was moderated by the timing of the emotional manipulation. Prospective memory performance was improved when negatively-valenced... (shrink)

The emotional enhancement of memory (EEM) describes the tendency for emotional information to be remembered better than non-emotional information (Barnacle et al., 2016; Kensinger & Corkin, 2004; T...

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of discrete emotions in lexical processing and memory, focusing on disgust and fear. We compared neutral words to disgust-related words and fear-related words in three experiments. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants performed a lexical decision task, and in Experiment 3 an affective categorisation task. These tasks were followed by an unexpected memory task. The results of the LDT experiments showed slower reaction times for both types of negative words with (...) respect to neutral words, plus a higher percentage of errors, this being more consistent for fear-related words than for disgust-related words. Furthermore, only disgusting words exhibited a higher recall accuracy than neutral words in the memory task. Moreover, the advantage in memory for disgusting words disappeared when participants carried out an affective categorisation task during encoding, suggesting that the superiority in memory for disgusting words observed in Experiments 1 and 2 could be due to greater elaborative processing. Taken together, these findings point to the relevance of discrete emotions in explaining the effects of the emotional content on lexical processing and memory. (shrink)

Influential theories on affect and emotion propose a fundamental differentiation between emotion and cognition, and research paradigms designed to test them focus on differences rather than similarities between affective and cognitive processes. This research orientation is increasingly challenged by the widespread and successful use of cognitive research paradigms in the study of affect and emotion—a challenge with far-reaching implications. Where and on what basis should theorists draw the line between cognition and emotion, and when is it useful to do so? (...) Should researchers build more global, integrative models of cognition and emotion, or should they rely on local, content-specific models that draw attention to a differentiation between affective and cognitive processes? This special issue compiles different viewpoints on fundamental issues in the relationship between affect and cognition. (shrink)