Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-bt4hw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-30T16:18:22.401Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Memory for emotional words in the first and the second language: Effects of the encoding task*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 August 2012

PILAR FERRÉ ,
ROSA SÁNCHEZ-CASAS  and
ISABEL FRAGA
PILAR FERRÉ*
Affiliation:
Research Center for Behavior Assessment and Department of Psychology, Rovira i Virgili University, Tarragona, Spain
ROSA SÁNCHEZ-CASAS
Affiliation:
Research Center for Behavior Assessment and Department of Psychology, Rovira i Virgili University, Tarragona, Spain
ISABEL FRAGA
Affiliation:
Department of Social Psychology, Basic Psychology and Methodology, University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
*
Address for correspondence: Pilar Ferré, CRAMC and Department of Psychology, Rovira i Virgili University, Carretera de Valls, s/n. 43007-Tarragona, Spainmariadelpilar.ferre@urv.cat
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Emotional words are better remembered than neutral words in the first language. Ferré, García, Fraga, Sánchez-Casas and Molero (2010) found this emotional effect also for second language words by using an encoding task focused on emotionality. The aim of the present study was to test whether the same effect can also be observed with encoding tasks not related to emotionality, as has been reported in monolinguals. We tested highly proficient bilinguals of Catalan and Spanish that were dominant in one of these two languages. At the encoding phase, we directed their attention to words’ features other than emotionality (participants had to either rate words’ concreteness or count the number of vowels they had). In both cases, we obtained an advantage for emotional words independently of the language in which they appeared. These results suggest that the emotional effect on memory has the same characteristics in the two languages of a bilingual.

Keywords

emotional wordsmemoryproficient bilinguals

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , July 2013 , pp. 495 - 507
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

This work has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PSI2009–12616 and Plan E), by the Autonomous Government of Catalonia (2009SGR-00401) and by the Autonomous Government of Galicia (INCITE09204014PR and CN2011/011). We would like to thank Jelena Havelka and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

References

Altarriba, J., & Basnight-Brown, D. M. (2011). The representation of emotion vs. emotion-laden words in English and Spanish in the Affective Simon Task. International Journal of Bilingualism, 15, 310–328.Google Scholar
Anooshian, L. J., & Hertel, P. T. (1994). Emotionality in free recall: Language specificity in bilingual memory. Cognition and Emotion, 8, 503–514.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ayçiçegi-Dinn, A., & Caldwell-Harris, C. L. (2009). Emotion-memory effects in bilingual speakers: A levels-of-processing approach. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 12, 291–303.Google Scholar
Ayçiçegi, A., & Harris, C. L. (2004). Bilinguals’ recall and recognition of emotion words. Cognition and Emotion, 18, 977–987.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caldwell-Harris, C. L., & Ayçiçegi-Dinn, A. (2009). Emotion and lying in a non-native language. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 71, 193–204.Google Scholar
Colbeck, K. L., & Bowers, J.S. (2012). Blinded by taboo words in L1 but not L2. Emotion, 12, 217–222.Google Scholar
Conrad, M., Recio, G., & Jacobs, A. M. (2011). The time course of emotion effects in first and second language processing: A cross cultural ERP study with German–Spanish bilinguals. Frontiers in Psychology, 2, 351. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00351.Google Scholar
Craik, F. I., & Lockhart, R. S. (1972). Levels of processing: A framework for memory research. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 11, 671–684.Google Scholar
Davis, C. J., & Perea, M. (2005). BuscaPalabras: A program for deriving ortographic and phonological neighborhood statistics and other psycholinguistic indices in Spanish. Behavior Research Methods, 37, 665–671.Google Scholar
Degner, J., Doycheva, C., & Wentura, D. (2012). It matters how much you talk: On the automaticity of affective connotations of first and second language words. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 15, 181–189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewaele, J. M. (2004a). The emotional force of swearwords and taboo words in the speech of multilinguals. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 25, 204–222.Google Scholar
Dewaele, J. M. (2004b). Blistering barnacles! What language do multilinguals swear in?! Estudios de Sociolingüística, 5, 83–105.Google Scholar
Dewaele, J. M. (2008). The emotional weight of I love you in multilinguals’ languages. Journal of Pragmatics, 40, 1753–1780.Google Scholar
Dewaele, J. M. (2010). Emotions in multiple languages. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Eilola, T. M., & Havelka, J. (2011). Behavioural and physiological responses to the emotional and taboo Stroop tasks in native and non-native speakers of English. International Journal of Bilingualism, 15, 353–369.Google Scholar
Eilola, T. M., Havelka, J., & Sharma, D. (2007). Emotional activation in the first and the second language. Cognition and Emotion, 21, 1064–1076.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Estes, Z., & Adelman, J. S. (2008). Automatic vigilance for negative words in lexical decision and naming: Comment on Larsen, Mercer, and Balota (2006). Emotion, 8, 441–444.Google Scholar
Estes, Z., & Verges, M. (2008). Freeze or flee? Negative stimuli elicit selective responding. Cognition, 208, 557–565.Google Scholar
Ferré, P. (2003). Effects of level of processing on memory for affectively valenced words. Cognition and Emotion, 17, 859–880.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferré, P., García, T., Fraga, I., Sánchez-Casas, R., & Molero, M. (2010). Memory for emotional words in bilinguals: Do words have the same emotional intensity in the first and in the second language? Cognition & Emotion, 24, 760–785.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferré, P., Sánchez-Casas, R., & Guasch, M. (2006). Can a horse be a donkey? Semantic and form interference effects in translation recognition in early and late proficient and non-proficient Spanish–Catalan bilinguals. Language Learning, 56, 571–608.Google Scholar
Forster, K. I., & Forster, J. C. (2003). DMDX: A Windows display program with millisecond accuracy. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments and Computers, 35, 116–124.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fraga, I., Redondo, J., Piñeiro, A., Padrón, I., Fernández-Rey, J., & Alcaraz, M. (2011). Attentional processing and recall of emotional words. Revista Latinoamericana de Psicología, 43, 401–418.Google Scholar
Greenberg, S. N., Tokarev, J., & Estes, Z. (2012). Affective orientation influences memory for emotional and neutral words. American Journal of Psychology, 125, 71–80.Google Scholar
Guasch, M., Sánchez-Casas, R., Ferré, P., & García-Albea, J. E. (2008). Translation performance of beginning, intermediate and proficient Spanish–Catalan bilinguals: Effects of form and semantic relations. The Mental Lexicon, 3, 289–308.Google Scholar
Harris, C. L. (2004). Bilingual speakers in the lab: Psychophysiological measures of emotional reactivity. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2, 223–247.Google Scholar
Harris, C. L., Ayçiçegi, A., & Gleason, J.B. (2003). Taboo words and reprimands elicit greater autonomic reactivity in a first than in a second language. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 561–578.Google Scholar
Janschewitz, K. (2008). Taboo, emotionally valenced, and emotionally neutral word norms. Behavior Research Methods, 40, 1065–1074.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jay, T., Caldwell-Harris, C. L., & King, K. (2008). Recalling taboo and nontaboo words. American Journal of Psychology, 121, 83–103.Google Scholar
Kensinger, E. A. (2008). Age differences in memory for arousing and nonarousing emotional words. Journal of Gerontology, 63B, 13–18.Google Scholar
Kensinger, E. A., & Corkin, S. (2003). Memory enhancement for emotional words: Are emotional words more vividly remembered than neutral words? Memory and Cognition, 31, 1169–1180.Google Scholar
Kousta, S. T., Vinson, D. P., & Vigliocco, G. (2009). Emotion words, regardless of polarity, have a processing advantage over neutral words. Cognition, 112, 473–481.Google Scholar
Kroll, J. F., & Stewart, E. (1994). Category interference in translation and picture naming: Evidence for asymmetric connections between bilingual memory representations. Journal of Memory and Language, 33, 149–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luminet, O., Vermeulen, N., Demaret, C., Taylor, G. J., & Bagby, R. M. (2006). Alexithymia and levels of processing: Evidence for an overall deficit in remembering emotion words. Journal of Research in Personality, 40, 713–733.Google Scholar
Majerus, S., & D'Argembeau, A. (2011). Verbal short-term memory reflects the organization of long-term memory: Further evidence from short-term memory for emotional words. Journal of Memory and Language, 64, 181–197.Google Scholar
Mathews, J. R., & Barch, D. M. (2006). Episodic memory for emotional and non-emotional words in individuals with anhedonia. Psychiatry Research, 143, 121–133.Google Scholar
Matt, G. E., Vázquez, C., & Campbell, W. K. (1992). Mood-congruent recall of affectively toned stimuli: A meta-analytic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 12, 227–255.Google Scholar
Nairne, J. S., Thompson, S. R., & Pandeirada, J. N. S. (2007). Adaptive memory: Survival processing enhances retention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 33, 263–273.Google Scholar
Pavlenko, A. (2005). Emotions and multilingualism. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Phelps, E. A., LaBar, K. S., & Spencer, D. D. (1997). Memory for emotional words following unilateral temporal lobectomy. Brain and Cognition, 35, 85–109.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rafel, J. (1996). Diccionari del Català contemporani: Diccionari de freqüències 1. Llengua no literària. Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans.Google Scholar
Ramponi, C., Handlesman, G., & Barnard, P. J. (2010). The memory enhancement effect of emotion is absent in conceptual implicit memory. Emotion, 10, 294–299.Google Scholar
Redondo, J., Fraga, I., Padrón, I., & Comesaña, M. (2007). The Spanish adaptation of ANEW (Affective Norms for English Words). Behavior Research Methods, 39, 600–605.Google Scholar
Sebastián-Gallés, N., Martí, M. A., Carreiras, M. F., & Cuetos, F. (2000). LEXESP: Léxico informatizado del español. Barcelona: Ediciones de la Universitat de Barcelona.Google Scholar
Segalowitz, N., Trofimovich, P., Gatbonton, E., & Sokolovskaya, A. (2008). Feeling affect in a second language. The Mental Lexicon, 3, 47–71.Google Scholar
Sunderman, G., & Kroll, J. F. (2006). First language activation during second language lexical processing: An investigation of lexical form, meaning, and grammatical class. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 28, 387–422.Google Scholar
Sutton, T. M., Altarriba, J., Gianico, L., & Basnight-Brown, D. (2007). The automatic access of emotion: Emotional Stroop effects in Spanish–English bilingual speakers. Cognition and Emotion, 21, 1077–1090.Google Scholar
Talamas, A., Kroll, J. F., & Dufour, R. (1999). From form to meaning: Stages in the acquisition of second language vocabulary. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 2, 45–58.Google Scholar
Talmi, D., & Moscovitch, M. (2004). Can semantic relatedness explain the enhancement of memory for emotional words? Memory and Cognition, 32, 742–751.Google Scholar
Vermeulen, N., & Luminet, O. (2009). Alexithymia factors and memory performances for neutral and emotional words. Personality and Individual Differences, 47, 305–309.Google Scholar
Witkin, A., Oltman, P. K., Raskin, E., & Karp, S. A. (1971). Embedded figures test. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologist Press.Google Scholar