Emotions in reading: Dissociation of happiness and positivity

Briesemeister, Benny B.; Kuchinke, Lars; Jacobs, Arthur; Braun, Mario

doi:10.3758/s13415-014-0327-2

Cited by 40 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 54 publications

(118 reference statements)

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“…Nevertheless, these results fit well with the evolutionary and appraisal accounts of aesthetic emotions discussed in the “Introduction” and also with data from recent neurocognitive studies using either lexical or VDTs (Briesemeister et al, 2014, 2015; Kuhlmann et al, 2016) and thus are further (computational) evidence for our specific hypothesis stated in the “Introduction.” Together these results suggest that valence is indeed a compound superfeature neuronally computed at the so-called tertiary (i.e., neocortical) level of affective processing according to Panksepp’s (1998) hierarchical theory of emotions. In contrast, joy/happiness and disgust are more basic and central affective responses likely computed at the secondary level (i.e., the limbic system).…”

Section: Stepwise Modeling Approachsupporting

confidence: 89%

“…Based on previous empirical and theoretical work from our group, we submitted the hypothesis that the main factor used in the investigation of EADs, i.e., stimulus valence, is a semantic superfeature resulting from a yet unknown integration of experiential and distributional data, at least partially represented in associative activation patterns of affective-semantic networks starting out in parts of the limbic system (Ponz et al, 2013; Briesemeister et al, 2014, 2015; Jacobs et al, 2015; Kuhlmann et al, 2016). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast, joy/happiness and disgust are more basic and central affective responses likely computed at the secondary level (i.e., the limbic system). The neuroimaging results from Briesemeister et al (2015) indicate that words associated with joy produce reduced brain activity in the amygdala, i.e., at the secondary level of Panksepp’s theory, while words that have positive valence, but are not associated with the basic emotion joy/happiness activate the orbitofrontal cortex at the tertiary level of affective processing. Further evidence for this comes from a brain-electrical experiment using the same stimuli and indicating that joy-words affect the early N1 component of the ERP – known to be sensitive to affective conditioning (Fritsch and Kuchinke, 2013) –, while positively valenced words affect the later N400 and LPC responses.…”

Section: Stepwise Modeling Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

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On Elementary Affective Decisions: To Like Or Not to Like, That Is the Question

2016

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Perhaps the most ubiquitous and basic affective decision of daily life is deciding whether we like or dislike something/somebody, or, in terms of psychological emotion theories, whether the object/subject has positive or negative valence. Indeed, people constantly make such liking decisions within a glimpse and, importantly, often without expecting any obvious benefit or knowing the exact reasons for their judgment. In this paper, we review research on such elementary affective decisions (EADs) that entail no direct overt reward with a special focus on Neurocognitive Poetics and discuss methods and models for investigating the neuronal and cognitive-affective bases of EADs to verbal materials with differing degrees of complexity. In line with evolutionary and appraisal theories of (aesthetic) emotions and data from recent neurocognitive studies, the results of a decision tree modeling approach simulating EADs to single words suggest that a main driving force behind EADs is the extent to which such high-dimensional stimuli are associated with the “basic” emotions joy/happiness and disgust.

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Section: Stepwise Modeling Approachsupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Stepwise Modeling Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

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On Elementary Affective Decisions: To Like Or Not to Like, That Is the Question

2016

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“…For example, Briesemeister, Kuchinke, and Jacobs (2014) found that the emotional category of words (happiness) affected the early N1 ERP component, whereas the valence of the words (positivity) affected later ERP components-an N400-like component and the late positive complex. Discrete categories and affective dimensions were also found to be dissociable in the brain, as suggested by different patterns of brain activation in response to, for example, happiness versus the overall positivity of words (Briesemeister, Kuchinke, Jacobs, & Braun, 2015). Examples of standardized sets of single words include the Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW; M. M. Bradley & Lang, 1999) and associated discrete norms (Stevenson et al, 2007), the Berlin Affective Word List (Võ et al, 2009) and associated discrete norms for nouns (e.g., DENN-BAWL; Briesemeister, Kuchinke, & Jacobs, 2011), the Leipzig Affective Norms for German (Kanske & Kotz, 2010), and the Nencki Affective Word List .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Minho Affective Sentences (MAS): Probing the roles of sex, mood, and empathy in affective ratings of verbal stimuli

et al. 2016

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During social communication, words and sentences play a critical role in the expression of emotional meaning. The Minho Affective Sentences (MAS) were developed to respond to the lack of a standardized sentence battery with normative affective ratings: 192 neutral, positive, and negative declarative sentences were strictly controlled for psycholinguistic variables such as numbers of words and letters and per-million word frequency. The sentences were designed to represent examples of each of the five basic emotions (anger, sadness, disgust, fear, and happiness) and of neutral situations. These sentences were presented to 536 participants who rated the stimuli using both dimensional and categorical measures of emotions. Sex differences were also explored. Additionally, we probed how personality, empathy, and mood from a subset of 40 participants modulated the affective ratings. Our results confirmed that the MAS affective norms are valid measures to guide the selection of stimuli for experimental studies of emotion. The combination of dimensional and categorical ratings provided a more finegrained characterization of the affective properties of the sentences. Moreover, the affective ratings of positive and negative sentences were not only modulated by participants' sex, but also by individual differences in empathy and mood state. Together, our results indicate that, in their quest to reveal the neurofunctional underpinnings of verbal emotional processing, researchers should consider not only the role of sex, but also of interindividual differences in empathy and mood states, in responses to the emotional meaning of sentences.

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“…In particular, Briesemeister et al (2014) investigated the temporal dynamics of affective processing using event related potentials (ERPs), finding that discrete-emotion effects occurred earlier than dimensional effects. In a similarly oriented fMRI study, Briesemeister et al (2015) reported that the brain areas affected by the manipulation of positivity were not the same as those affected by the manipulation of happiness. According to these authors, such results cannot be accounted for by either discrete-emotion theories or dimensional theories alone.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Moved by words: Affective ratings for a set of 2,266 Spanish words in five discrete emotion categories

et al. 2016

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The two main theoretical accounts of the human affective space are the dimensional perspective and the discrete-emotion approach. In recent years, several affective norms have been developed from a dimensional perspective, including ratings for valence and arousal. In contrast, the number of published datasets relying on the discrete-emotion approach is much lower. There is a need to fill this gap, considering that discrete emotions have an effect on word processing above and beyond those of valence and arousal. In the present study, we present ratings from 1,380 participants for a set of 2,266 Spanish words in five discrete emotion categories: happiness, anger, fear, disgust, and sadness. This will be the largest dataset published to date containing ratings for discrete emotions. We also present, for the first time, a fine-grained analysis of the distribution of words into the five emotion categories. This analysis reveals that happiness words are the most consistently related to a single, discrete emotion category. In contrast, there is a tendency for many negative words to belong to more than one discrete emotion. The only exception is disgust words, which overlap least with the other negative emotions. Normative valence and arousal data already exist for all of the words included in this corpus. Thus, the present database will allow researchers to design studies to contrast the predictions of the two most influential theoretical perspectives in this field. These studies will undoubtedly contribute to a deeper understanding of the effects of emotion on word processing.

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Emotions in reading: Dissociation of happiness and positivity

Cited by 40 publications

References 54 publications

On Elementary Affective Decisions: To Like Or Not to Like, That Is the Question

On Elementary Affective Decisions: To Like Or Not to Like, That Is the Question

Minho Affective Sentences (MAS): Probing the roles of sex, mood, and empathy in affective ratings of verbal stimuli

Moved by words: Affective ratings for a set of 2,266 Spanish words in five discrete emotion categories

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