Introducing grip force as a nonverbal measure of bilingual feelings

Abstract

Bilinguals’ emotions can vary in intensity with the language of a stimulus. Yet, extant research has somewhat surprisingly accepted inconsistent results from implicit nonverbal and explicit verbal emotion measures. To date, it is unclear if this inconsistency recurs to conceptual or methodological differences. We therefore investigated if squeezing a handheld dynamometer is a valid nonverbal, “visceral” alternative to self-reported language-dependent feelings by comparing explicit ratings to neuro-physiological emotional reactions. We replicated two pupillometry experiments inducing language-dependent emotions through sentence reading (Study 1) and listening to narrative video commercials (Study 2) of low and high emotionality in the first or second language. Pupillometry confirmed that bilinguals are more sensitive to the low-high emotionality contrast in their first than second language. Grip force (but not duration) mirrored these findings, whereas verbal ratings did not. We thus recommend grip force as a new attentional, nonverbal measure for bilingualism research.

Brain potentials reveal reduced sensitivity to negative content during second language production

“…The LPP result in Experiment 2 showed the predicted effect of increased LPP amplitudes for negative words during translation from L2 to L1 (Rohr & Rahman, 2018) that is, when participants prepared for producing L1. This result also corroborates the existing electrodermal and pupillometry reports of increased late response to negative meaning in L1 likely related to the re-evaluation of emotional meaning (Baumeister et al, 2017;Iacozza et al, 2017;Jankowiak & Korpal, 2018;Thoma et al, 2022;Toivo & Scheepers, 2019). Here, we extend these findings in a design testing production of emotional words in both L1 and L2.…”

“…A recent study extended this effect to a pre-stimulus stage by showing decreased brain activity when participants anticipated negative information in L2 only (Jończyk et al, 2019). These results are consistent with electrodermal and pupillometry studies (e.g., Baumeister et al, 2017;Iacozza et al, 2017;Jankowiak & Korpal, 2018;Thoma et al, 2022;Toivo & Scheepers, 2019). Altogether, accumulating evidence from EEG and pupillometry suggests that communicating in L2 dampens emotional responses, in particular when bilinguals read or hear negative content embedded in a minimal semantic context that mimics natural language.…”

How first- and second-language emotion words influence emotion perception in Swedish–English bilinguals

“…At the behavioral level, reading comprehension tasks show that bilinguals take significantly longer to read L1 negative emotion words than L1 neutral words, but this difference is not observed when comparing L2 negative and neutral words (Sheikh & Titone, 2016). Physiologically, people exhibit lower skin conductance responses (e.g., Caldwell-Harris & Ayçiçeği-Dinn, 2009;Harris, 2004;Harris et al, 2003), smaller pupillary responses (Toivo & Scheepers, 2019), and weaker grip force responses (Thoma et al, 2023) when hearing or reading L2 emotional words compared to L1. Thus, across self-report, behavioral, and physiological levels of analysis, data converge to suggest that emotional experiences are dulled when using one's second language (however, see e.g., Ayçiçegi & Harris, 2004;Ayçiçegi-Dinn & Caldwell-Harris, 2009;Ferré et al, 2010 for studies that did not find such a difference on memory tasks and Eilola & Havelka, 2011; T. M. Sutton et al, 2007 for studies that did not find such a difference on an emotional Stroop task).…”