The adaptation of the Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW) for European Portuguese

This study presents the adaptation of the Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW; Bradley & Lang, 1999a) for European Portuguese (EP). The EP adaptation of the ANEW was based on the affective ratings made by 958 college students who were EP native speakers. Participants assessed about 60 words by considering the affective dimensions of valence, arousal, and dominance, using the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) in either a paper-and-pencil and a web survey procedures. Results of the adaptation of the ANEW for EP are presented. Furthermore, the differences between EP, American (Bradley & Lang, 1999a), and Spanish (Redondo, Fraga, Padrón, & Comesaña, 2007) standardizations were explored. Results showed that the ANEW words were understood in a similar way by EP, American, and Spanish subjects, although some sex and cross-cultural differences were observed. The EP adaptation of the ANEW is shown to be a valid and useful tool that will allow researchers to control and/or manipulate the affective properties of stimuli as well as to develop cross-linguistic studies. The normative values of EP adaptation of the ANEW can be downloaded at http://brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.COMPETE - Programa Operacional Factores de CompetitividadeFundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional - FEDERQuadro de Referência Estratégico Nacional - QRENFundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - research project “Procura Palavras (P-Pal ): A software program for deriving objective and subjective psycholinguistic indices for European Portuguese words

Behavioural and physiological responses to the emotional and taboo Stroop tasks in native and non-native speakers of English

Skin conductance levels (SCLs) of native and non-native English speakers were measured during emotional and taboo Stroop tasks. Significantly slower response times to negative and taboo words when compared to neutral words were found in both groups of participants, but positive words were not found to differ significantly from neutral words. No differences between native and non-native speakers in their behavioural responses were present: the pattern of interference from negative and taboo words was found to be identical in L1 and L2. SCLs, however, did reveal differences between the native and non-native participants: native English speakers responded with significantly higher SCLs to negative and taboo words when compared with neutral and positive words. This difference was not observed in non-native speakers, although there was a trend for taboo words to elicit greater SCLs than positive words. This suggests that, although the two groups responded in a very similar manner on a behavioural level, the level of arousal produced by the negative and taboo words for native English speakers was greater than that for non-native speakers

Reduced cross-modal affective priming in the L2 of late bilinguals depends on L2 exposure.

Processing of emotional meaning is crucial in many areas of psychology, including language and music processing. This issue takes on particular significance in bilinguals because it has been suggested that bilinguals process affective words differently in their first (L1) and second, later acquired languages (L2). We undertook a series of five experiments examining affective priming between emotionally valenced language and emotionally valenced music. Adult English monolinguals and two groups of proficient adult late bilinguals (German-English and Italian-English) with recent L2 exposure were examined. Priming effects were investigated using music to prime word targets and words to prime music targets. For both groups of bilinguals, music showed equivalent affective priming of L1 and L2 words, suggesting no difference in deliberate processing of affective meaning. Conversely, when words primed music, L2 words lacked the affective priming strength of L1 words for both late bilingual groups. Among various language background factors, only greater length of residence in the L2 context was positively related to the affective priming strength of L2 words. These results show strong activation of emotional meaning in the L1 of late bilinguals but reduced activation in the L2, where level of activation depends on the duration of everyday exposure to the L2. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)