It is well documented that both emotion-label words (e.g., sadness, happiness) and emotion-laden words (e.g., death, wedding) can induce emotion activation. However, the neural correlates of emotion-label words and emotion-laden words recognition have not been examined. The present study aimed to compare the underlying neural responses when processing the two kinds of words by employing event-related potential (ERP) measurements. Fifteen Chinese native speakers were asked to perform a lexical decision task in which they should judge whether a two-character compound stimulus was a real word or not. Results showed that 1) emotion-label words and emotion-laden words elicited similar P100 at the posteriors sites, 2) larger N170 was found for emotion-label words than for emotion-laden words at the occipital sites on the right hemisphere, and 3) negative emotion-label words elicited larger Late Positivity Complex (LPC) on the right hemisphere than on the left hemisphere while such effect was not found for emotion-laden words and positive emotion-label words. The results indicate that emotion-label words and emotion-laden words elicit different cortical responses at both early (N170) and late (LPC) stages. In addition, right hemisphere advantage for emotion-label words over emotion-laden words can be observed in certain time windows (i.e., N170 and LPC) while fails to be detected in some other time window (i.e., P100). The implications of the current findings for future emotion research were discussed.

Although increasing literature has suggested that emotion-label words (e.g., anger, delight) and emotion-laden words (e.g., thief, bride) were processed differently in native language (L1), there was a lack of neuroimaging evidence showing such differences in second language (L2). The current study compared the cortical responses to emotion-label words and emotion-laden words in L2 using event-related potentials (ERPs) technique. Sixteen Chinese–English bilingual college students were asked to finish a lexical decision task with their brain activations recorded. Overall, emotion-label words and emotion-laden words showed diverse processing characteristics. Specifically, such differences were evidenced by the results that (1) larger N170 was elicited by negative emotion-label words than by negative emotion-laden words while positive emotion-laden words evoked larger N170 than positive emotion-label words at occipito-temporal sites, and (2) emotion-laden words evoked larger Late Positive Complex (LPC) than emotion-label words at parietal sites over the right hemisphere. The implication of the current findings was also discussed.

In order to explore the affective priming effect of emotion-label words and emotion-laden words, the current study used unmasked (Experiment 1) and masked (Experiment 2) priming paradigm by including emotion-label words (e.g., sadness, anger) and emotion-laden words (e.g., death, gift) as primes and examined how the two kinds of words acted upon the processing of the target words (all emotion-laden words). Participants were instructed to decide the valence of target words, and their electroencephalogram was recorded at the same time. The behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) results showed that positive words produced a priming effect whereas negative words inhibited target word processing (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, the inhibition effect of negative emotion-label words on emotion word recognition was found in both behavioral and ERP results, suggesting that modulation of emotion word type on emotion word processing could be observed even in the masked priming paradigm. The two experiments further supported the necessity of defining emotion words under an emotion word type perspective. The implications of the findings are proffered. Specifically, a clear understanding of emotion-label words and emotion-laden words can improve the effectiveness of emotional communications in clinical settings. Theoretically, the emotion word type perspective awaits further explorations and is still at its infancy.

Emotion words modulate conflict processing, even at an early stage (i.e., N200). However, the previous studies implicitly mixed emotion-label words and emotion-laden words together and mostly concentrated on first language (L1) rather than on second language (L2). The current study aimed to investigate whether L2 negative emotion-label words, negative emotion-laden words, and neutral words would affect conflict processing in a flanker task by using event-related potential (ERP) measurements. Twenty Chinese-English bilinguals completed a modified flanker task to decide the color of the target words. The results revealed that only L2 negative emotion-label words elicited larger left frontal N200 in the incongruent condition than in the congruent condition. No significant difference between the two conditions was observed for L2 negative emotion-laden words or neutral words. This research demonstrated that L2 emotion words could also modulate early conflict processing, at least for L2 negative emotion-label words.