Reconocimiento visual de palabras emocionales en una tarea de decisión léxica: el caso del arousal

Traballo Fin de Grao de Psicoloxía. Curso 2017-2018[ES] Diversos estudios han encontrado de forma consistente que la connotación emocional influye en el reconocimiento visual de palabras (e.g., Kousta, Vinson & Vigliocco, 2009; Kuperman, Estes, Brysbaert & Warriner, 2014). En concreto, investigaciones recientes en español han encontrado que la valencia negativa de las palabras se relaciona con una latencia de respuesta mayor en la tarea de decisión léxica (TDL; Padrón, Fraga & Perea, 2017; Padrón, Isdahl-Troye & Fraga, 2017). El objetivo central de este trabajo fue investigar si también la activación emocional (arousal) de las palabras afecta a la ejecución (tiempos de respuesta y errores) en dicha tarea y si ese efecto es lineal o no. Puesto que el efecto del arousal sería principalmente temprano (Citron, 2012; Recio, Conrad, Hansen, & Jacobs, 2014), se manipuló asimismo la calidad perceptiva de los estímulos, una variable que afecta a estadios tempranos del procesamiento léxico. Los resultados obtenidos no mostraron un efecto consistente del arousal, ni tampoco una interacción significativa entre arousal y calidad perceptiva, aunque sí se encontró una tendencia a leer más rápidamente las palabras negativas muy activadoras.[EN] Many studies have found that the emotional content of words plays a role in their visual recognition (e.g., Kousta, Vinson & Vigliocco, 2009; Kuperman, Estes, Brysbaert & Warriner, 2014). More specifically, some recent research in Spanish using the lexical decision task (LDT) has shown that negative valence is related to slower responses (Padrón, Fraga & Perea, 2017; Padrón, Isdahl-Troye & Fraga, 2017). The aim of this study is to explore whether arousal also affects LDT performance (i.e., response times and errors), and whether this effect is linear or not. It is known that arousal effects tend to appear early in processing (Citron, 2012; Recio, Conrad, Hansen, & Jacobs, 2014). For this reason, we also manipulated the perceptual quality of the stimuli, a variable that affects early encoding processes. The results did not show a consistent effect of arousal during word recognition or a significant interaction between arousal and stimulus quality. Nonetheless, there is a trend for high arousal negative words to be read faster

A Study on the Psychological Wound of COVID-19 in University Students

Publication of this manuscript was supported by Regional Goverment of Galicia, Programa de Axudas para a Consolidación e Estruturación de Unidades de Investigación Competitivas e outras Accións de Fomento, Refs. ED431C 2018/2 and ED431B 2019/20An increasing number of studies have addressed the psychological impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the general population. Nevertheless, far less is known about the impact on specific populations such as university students, whose psychological vulnerability has been shown in previous research. This study sought to examine different indicators of mental health in university students during the Spanish lockdown; we also analyzed the main sources of stress perceived by students in relation to the COVID-19 crisis, and the coping strategies adopted when faced with the situation. Data was collected from 932 students (704 women) through a web-based platform. Measures of anxiety (i.e., GAD-7), depression (PHQ-9), irritability, and self-perceived change in mental health were administered, as well as ad hoc measures of stressors and coping strategies. Results indicated that students experienced considerable psychological problems during the confinement, with higher rates of emotional difficulties in women and undergraduate students than in men and postgraduates, respectively. Psychological distress was mainly related to several specific domains of stressors, as perceived by the participants: academic future, task overload, worsening of interpersonal conflicts, and restrictions in pleasant social contact; and far less related to the spread of the disease and its consequences for physical health. As regards coping strategies, both reframing skills and daily routines were shown to be the most effective. A path-analysis model integrating stressors, coping, and mental health revealed that coping strategies partially mediated the effect of stressors on psychological health. In general, results suggest that students’ psychological health was substantially affected by the COVID-19 situation and that the academic and relational changes were the most notable sources of stress. This study reinforces the need to monitor and promote mental health in university students to boost resilience in times of crisis. Our results on effective coping strategies may inform preventive programs aimed at helping students to deal with challenges like the COVID-19 pandemicS

Unraveling the mystery about the negative valence bias: does arousal account for processing differences in unpleasant words?

Many studies have found that the emotional content of words affects visual word recognition. However, most of them have only considered affective valence, finding inconsistencies regarding the direction of the effects, especially in unpleasant words. Recent studies suggest that arousal might explain why not all unpleasant words elicit the same behavior. The aim of the present research was to study the role of arousal in unpleasant word recognition. To do that, we carried out an ERP experiment in which participants performed a lexical decision task that included unpleasant words which could vary across three levels of arousal (intermediate, high, and very high) and words which were neutral in valence and had an intermediate level of arousal. Results showed that, within unpleasant words, those intermediate in arousal evoked smaller LPC amplitudes than words that were high or very high in arousal, indicating that arousal affects unpleasant word recognition. Critically, arousal determined whether the effect of negative valence was found or not. When arousal was not matched between unpleasant and neutral valenced words, the effect of emotionality was weak in the behavioral data and absent in the ERP data. However, when arousal was intermediate in both unpleasant and neutral valenced words, larger EPN amplitudes were reported for the former, pointing to an early allocation of attention. Interestingly, these unpleasant words which had an intermediate level of arousal showed a subsequent inhibitory effect in that they evoked smaller LPC amplitudes and led to slower reaction times and more errors than neutral words. Our results highlight the relevance that the arousal level has for the study of negative valence effects in word recognitionThis study was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (PID2019-107206GB-I00 and RED2018-102615-T), the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2019-110583GB-I00), the Autonomous Government of Galicia (Consellería de Educación, Xunta de Galicia, GRC 2015/006), and the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (2019PFR-URV-B2-32)S