On 26 November, Prof. Dr. Johanna Kissler from Bielefeld University, Germany, will talk about Emotion in word processing: neuroscientific evidence.

ABSTRACT

Emotions can be elicited and described by words, apparently linking linguistic cognitive systems with older, more rudimentary emotional brain systems, thereby altering word processing. Processing of emotional words has been shown to differ from neutral ones: Emotional words elicit higher amplitude event-related potentials from earliest processing stages and hemodynamic responses in deep “emotional brain” nuclei such as the amygdala. They are responded to faster, induce stronger pre-response activation of the motor systems, and are better remembered than neutral words. Moreover, they can also serve as efficient learning contexts, modulating the processing of other information such as faces. Yet, recent evidence has shown that what sets emotional words apart from neutral ones is itself malleable by context. Moreover, it has also become apparent that several of the physiological markers thought to index activation of emotional brain regions during emotional word processing persist even in the absence of those regions and that subjective appraisal and emotional memory need not be altered by loss of medial temporal lobe structures. Thus, these data establish several facts about the processing of emotional words but also paint a complex picture on their cerebral representation: on the one hand, a large body of data shows that the processing of these words often draws on body-related brain structures. On the other hand, this embodiment is itself contextualized and the processing system seems quite robust against considerable damage to emotion-related brain structures. Therefore, data suggest that representation and processing of emotional words are realized in multiple, interactive and partly redundant systems that while typically embodied and socially situated, can show a considerable degree of autonomy.