Article published In:
The Mental LexiconVol. 10:2 (2015) ► pp.221–246
Emotional arousal and lexical specificity modulate response times differently depending on ear of presentation in a dichotic listening task
We investigated possible hemispheric differences in the processing of four different lexical semantic categories: SPECIFIC (e.g. bird), GENERAL (e.g. animal), ABSTRACT (e.g. advice), and EMOTIONAL (e.g. love). These wordtypes were compared using a dichotic listening paradigm and a semantic category classification task. Response times (RTs) were measured when participants classified testwords as concrete or abstract. In line with previous findings, words were expected to be processed faster following right-ear presentation. However, lexical specificity and emotional arousal were predicted to modulate response times differently depending on the ear of presentation. For left-ear presentation, relatively faster RTs were predicted for SPECIFIC and EMOTIONAL words as opposed to GENERAL and ABSTRACT words. An interaction of ear and wordtype was found. For right-ear presentation, RTs increased as testwords’ imageability decreased along the span SPECIFIC–GENERAL–EMOTIONAL–ABSTRACT. In contrast, for left ear presentation, EMOTIONAL words were processed fastest, while SPECIFIC words gave rise to long RTs on par with those for ABSTRACT words. Thus, the prediction for EMOTIONAL words presented in the left ear was borne out, whereas the prediction for SPECIFIC words was not. This might be related to previously found differences in processing of stimuli at a global or local level.
References
Altarriba, J., Bauer, L.M., & Benvenuto, C
(1999) Concreteness, context availability, and imageability ratings and word associations for abstract, concrete, and emotion words. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers 31>1, 578–602. 
Altarriba, J., & Bauer, L.M
(2004) The distinctiveness of emotion concepts: A comparison between emotion, abstract, and concrete words. The American Journal of Psychology, 117(3), 389–410.
Bayazıt, O., Öniz, A., Hahn, C., Güntürkün, O., & Özgören, M
(2009) Dichotic listening revisited: Trial-by-trial ERP analyses reveal intra- and interhemispheric differences. Neuropsychologia, 47 (2), 536–545.
Binder, J.R., Westbury, C., McKiernan, K.A., Possing, E.T., & Medler, D.A
(2005) Distinct brain systems for processing concrete and abstract concepts. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 17 (6), 905–917.
Borod, J.C., Andelman, F., Obler, L.K., Tweedy, J.R., & Wilkowitz, J
(1992) Right hemisphere specialization for the identification of emotional words and sentences: Evidence from stroke patients. Neuropsychologia, 30 (9), 827–844.
Brännström, K.J., & Grenner, J
(2008a) Long-term measurement of binaural intensity matches and pitch matches. I. Normal hearing. International Journal of Audiology, 47 (2), 59–66.
Brännström, K.J, & Grenner, J
(2008b) Clinical application of long-term intensity and pitch matches in fluctuating low-frequency hearing loss. International Journal of Audiology, 47 (7), 412–419.
Buchanan, T.W., Lutz, K., Mirzazade, S., Specht, K., Shah, N.J., Zilles, K., & Jäncke, L
(2000) Recognition of emotional prosody and verbal components of spoken language: an fMRI study. Cognitive Brain Research, 9 (3), 227–238.
Coltheart, M
(1981) The MRC psycholinguistic database. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A, 33 (4), 497–505.
Crutch, S.J., & Warrington, E.K
(2003) Preservation of propositional speech in a pure anomic: The importance of an abstract vocabulary. Neurocase, 9 (6), 465–481.
Ely, P.W., Graves, R.E., & Potter, S.M
(1989) Dichotic listening indices of right hemisphere semantic processing. Neuropsychologia, 27 (7), 1007–1015.
Ejerhed, E., Källgren, G., Wennstedt, O., & Åström, M
1992 The linguistic annotation system of the Stockholm-Umeå corpus roject. Tech. rep. 331, Department of General Linguistics, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.
Fink, G.R., Halligan, P.W., Marshall, J.C., Frith, C.D., Frackowiak, R.S.J., & Dolan, R.J
(1996) Where in the brain does visual attention select the forest and the trees? Nature, 382 (6592), 626–628.
Fink, G.R., Marshall, J.C., & Halligan, P.W
(2000) Neuronal activity in early visual areas during global and local processing: A comment on Heinze, Hinrichs, Scholz, Burchert, and Mangun. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12 (2), 355–356.
Han, S., Weaver, J.A., Murray, S.O., Kang, X., & Yund, E.W
(2002) Hemispheric Asymmetry in Global/Local Processing: Effects of stimulus position and spatial frequency. NeuroImage, 171, 1290–1299.
Hauk, O., & Pulvermüller, F
(2004) Neurophysiological distinction of action words in the fronto-central cortex. Human Brain Mapping, 21 (3), 191–201.
Hickok, G., & Poeppel, D
(2007) The cortical organization of speech processing. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 8 (5), 393–402.
Hugdahl, K
(2000) Lateralization of cognitive processes in the brain. Acta Psychologica, 105 (2–3), 211–235.
Khader, P.H., Jost, K., Mertens, M., Bien, S., & Rösler, F
(2010) Neural correlates of generating visual nouns and motor verbs in a minimal phrase context. Brain Research, 1318 (C), 122–132.
Kimura, D
(1967) Functional Asymmetry of the brain in dichotic listening. Cortex, 3 (2), 163–178.
Kousta, S.-T., Vinson, D.P., & Vigliocco, G
(2009) Emotion words, regardless of polarity, have a processing advantage over neutral words. Cognition, 112 (3), 473–481.
Kousta, S.-T., Vigliocco, G., Vinson, D.P., Andrews, M., & Del Campo, E
(2011) The representation of abstract words: Why emotion matters. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 140 (1), 14–34.
Laeng, B., Zarrinpar, A., & Kosslyn, S.M
(2003) Do separate processes identify objects as exemplars versus members of basic-level categories? Evidence from hemispheric specialization. Brain and Cognition, 53 (1), 15–27.
Ley, R.G., & Bryden, M.P
(1982) A dissociation of right and left hemispheric effects for recognizing emotional tone and verbal content. Brain and Cognition, 1 (1), 3–9.
Mårtensson, F., Roll, M., Apt, P., & Horne, M
(2011) Modeling the meaning of words: Neural correlates of abstract and concrete noun processing. Acta Neurobiologiae Experimentalis, 711, 455–478.
Mårtensson, F., Roll, M., Lindgren, M., Apt, P., & Horne, M
(2014) Sensory-specific anomic aphasia following left occipital lesions: Data from free oral descriptions of concrete word meanings. Neurocase, 20 (2), 192–207.
McFarland, K., McFarland, M.L., Bain, J.D., & Ashton, R
(1978) Ear differences of abstract and concrete word recognition. Neuropsychologia, 161, 555–561.
Navon, D
(1977) Forest before trees: The precedence of global features in visual perception. Cognitive Psychology, 9 (3), 353–383.
Oldfield, R.C
(1971) The assessment and analysis of handedness: The Edinburgh inventory. Neuropsychologia, 9(1), 97–113.
Oliveira, J., Perea, M.V., Ladera, V., & Gamito, P
(2013) The roles of word concreteness and cognitive load on interhemispheric processes of recognition. Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition, 18 (2), 203–215.
Paivio, A
(1990) Mental representations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Preacher, K.J
(2001, April). Calculation for the chi-square test: An interactive calculation tool for chi-square tests of goodness of fit and independence [Computer software]. Available from [URL].
Prior, M.R., Cumming, G., & Hendy, J
(1984) Recognition of abstract and concrete words in a dichotic listening paradigm. Cortex, 20 (1), 149–157.
Pujol, J., Deus, J., Losilla, J.M., & Capdevila, A
(1999) Cerebral lateralization of language in normal left-handed people studied by functional MRI. Neurology, 52 (5), 1038–1038.
Robertson, L.C., & Lamb, M.R
(1991) Neuropsychological contributions to theories of part/whole organization. Cognitive Psychology, 231, 299–330.
Roll, M., Mårtensson, F., Sikström, S., Apt, P., Arnling-Bååth, R., & Horne, M
(2012) Atypical associations to abstract words in Broca’s aphasia. Cortex, 48 (8), 1068–1072.
Rosch, E., Mervis, C.B., Gray, W.D., Johnson, D.M., & Boyes-Braem, P
(1976) Basic objects in natural categories. Cognitive Psychology, 8 (3), 382–439.
Rutten, G.J.M., Ramsey, N.F., van Rijen, P.C., Alpherts, W.C., & van Veelen, C.W.M
(2002) fMRI-determined language ateralization in patients with inilateral or mixed language dominance according to the wada test. NeuroImage, 17 (1), 447–460.
Sabsevitz, D.S., Medler, D.A., Seidenberg, M., & Binder, J.R
(2005) Modulation of the semantic system by word imageability. NeuroImage, 27 (1), 188–200.
Sandberg, C., & Kiran, S
(2014) Analysis of abstract and concrete word processing in persons with aphasia and age-matched neurologically healthy adults using fMRI. Neurocase, 20 (4), 361–388.
Wada, J., & Rasmussen, T
(1960) Intracarotid injection of sodium amythal for the lateralization of cerebral speech dominance: Experimental and clinical observations. Journal of Neurosurgery, 171, 266–282.
Warrington, E.K
(1975) The selective impairment of semantic memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 27 (4), 635–657.
Westbury, C., & Moroschan, G
(2009) Imageability x phonology interactions during lexical access: Effects of modality, phonological neighbourhood, and phonological processing efficiency. The Mental Lexicon, 4 (1), 115–145.
Westbury, C.F., Shaoul, C., Hollis, G., Smithson, L., Briesemeister, B.B., Hofmann, M.J., &
Jacobs, A.M
(2013) Now you see it, now you don’t: On emotion, context, & the algorithmic prediction of human imageability judgments. Frontiers in Psychology, 41, 991.
Yasin, I
(2007) Hemispheric differences in processing dichotic meaningful and non-meaningful words. Neuropsychologia, 45 (12), 2718–2729.
Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
Blomberg, Frida, Mikael Roll, Johan Frid, Magnus Lindgren & Merle Horne
2020. The role of affective meaning, semantic associates, and orthographic neighbours in modulating the N400 in single
words. The Mental Lexicon 15:2 ► pp. 161 ff. 
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.