Emotion in Context: How Sender Predictability and Identity Affect Processing of Words as Imminent Personality Feedback

Abstract

Recent findings suggest that communicative context affects the timing and magnitude of emotion effects in word processing. In particular, social attributions seem to be one important source of plasticity for the processing of affectively charged language. Here, we investigate the timing and magnitude of ERP responses toward positive, neutral, and negative trait adjectives during the anticipation of putative socio-evaluative feedback from different senders (human and computer) varying in predictability. In the first experiment, during word presentation participants could not anticipate whether a human or a randomly acting computer sender was about to give feedback. Here, a main effect of emotion was observed only on the late positive potential (LPP), showing larger amplitudes for positive compared to neutral adjectives. In the second study the same stimuli and set-up were used, but a block-wise presentation was realized, resulting in fixed and fully predictable sender identity. Feedback was supposedly given by an expert (psychotherapist), a layperson (unknown human), and again by a randomly acting computer. Main effects of emotion started with an increased P1 for negative adjectives, followed by effects at the N1 and early posterior negativity (EPN), showing both largest amplitudes for positive words, as well as for the LPP, where positive and negative words elicited larger amplitudes than neutral words. An interaction revealed that emotional LPP modulations occurred only for a human sender. Finally, regardless of content, anticipating human feedback led to larger P1 and P3 components, being highest for the putative expert. These findings demonstrate the malleability of emotional language processing by social contexts. When clear predictions can be made, our brains rapidly differentiate between emotional and neutral information, as well as between different senders. Attributed human presence affects emotional language processing already during feedback anticipation, in line with a selective gating of attentional resources via anticipatory social significance attributions. By contrast, emotion effects occur much later, when crucial social context information is still missing. These findings demonstrate the context-dependence of emotion effects in word processing and are particularly relevant since virtual communication with unknown senders, whose identity is inferred rather than perceived, has become reality for millions of people.

Keywords: EEG/ERP; anticipation; emotion; language; prediction; social context; virtual communication.

FIGURE 1

Selected electrode clusters for each ERP component. Each color indicates a respective electrode cluster.

FIGURE 2

Lateralization effects in Study 1. Upper panel shows scalp topographies for all conditions collapsed. Blue color indicates more negativity and red color more positivity. Lower panel shows selected electrodes for each of the P1 clusters.

FIGURE 3

Emotion LPP effects in Study 1. Left panel depicts difference topographies between emotional contents. Blue color indicates more negativity and red color more positivity for the respective comparison. Right panel: Average amplitudes for the anterior and posterior electrode clusters, showing the time course for all conditions. Time windows with significant effects are highlighted in gray.

FIGURE 4

P1 main effects of the sender and emotion in Study 2. The left panel shows difference topographies: Blue color indicates more negativity and red color more positivity for the respective comparison. The right panel shows the time course for selected electrodes. (A) A significantly larger P1 was found for negative compared to positive words. (B) A significantly larger P1 was found for the expert compared to the computer sender for the central parieto-occipital electrode cluster.

FIGURE 5

N1 and EPN occipital emotion effects in Study 2. Left panel shows difference topographies: Blue color indicates more negativity and red color more positivity for the respective comparison. A significantly larger N1 and EPN was found for positive words compared to negative ones. Right panel: Selected electrode OI2 shows the time course over occipital regions. Time windows with significant effects are highlighted in gray.

FIGURE 6

P3 main effects of the sender in Study 2. The left panel shows difference topographies: Blue color indicates more negativity and red color more positivity for the respective comparison. The right panel shows the time course for selected electrode Pz. A significantly larger P3 was found for the expert and layperson compared to the computer sender.

FIGURE 7

LPP interactions between sender and emotion in Study 2. (A) Difference topographies, showing strongest emotion to neutral differences for the layperson. (B) Average amplitudes in microvolt for the anterior and posterior cluster for all conditions. (C) Average amplitudes in microvolt for the whole LPP. Error bars represent ±1 SEM.