The role of stimuli valence and arousal in emotional word processing: Evidence from the emotional Stroop task

Abstract

This study estimated how words that differ in valence and arousal influence the size of emotional Stroop effect (ESE). For this purpose, we conducted an experiment with the emotional Stroop task using five categories of words: neutral, high– and low-arousal negative, and high– and low-arousal positive stimuli. The results showed that the size of ESE was influenced both by valence and arousal. ESE for negative words was greater than for positive words; it was also greater for high-arousal words than low-arousal words. The interaction between valence and arousal was also obtained. High-arousal negative stimuli make the main contribution to the results. The results are discussed within the context of the automatic vigilance and generic slowdown theories.

Keywords

• emotional stroop
• valence
• arousal
• word processing