Are there similarities between emotional and familiarity-based processing in visual word recognition?

Abstract

Abstract Previous ERP research revealed emotion effects on visual word processing in early time windows (P1) and during later evaluative processing (LPC). In both time windows interactions with word familiarity measures have been reported. Using an evaluative conditioning paradigm participants learned to associate meaningless pseudowords with neutral or negative valence. In addition, one set of pseudowords was learned three times as often as the others in order to manipulate familiarity. Behavioral results confirmed that evaluative conditioning was effective. Small effects of emotion on P1 and of overall conditioning on the LPC were visible, while familiarity only modulated later ERP amplitudes (>300ms). Exploratory analyses demonstrated a functional relationship between P1 and LPC emotion effects but not for familiarity. Post-hoc examinations illustrated that good learners showed effects of emotion and familiarity on LPC amplitudes which were not evident in participants performing below average. These results are discussed in light of questions regarding the representation and processing of valence and familiarity that are of interest for theoretical models of visual word recognition.