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Automatic vigilance for negative words in lexical decision and naming : comment on Larsen, Mercer, and Balota (2006)

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Estes, Zachary, 1973- and Adelman, James S. . (2008) Automatic vigilance for negative words in lexical decision and naming : comment on Larsen, Mercer, and Balota (2006). Emotion, Vol.8 (No.4). pp. 441-444. ISSN 1528-3542

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.8.4.441

Abstract

An automatic vigilance hypothesis states that humans preferentially attend to negative stimuli, and this attention to negative valence disrupts the processing of other stimulus properties. Thus, negative words typically elicit slower color naming, word naming, and lexical decisions than neutral or positive words. Larsen, Mercer, and Balota (see record 2006-04603-006) analyzed the stimuli from 32 published studies, and they found that word valence was confounded with several lexical factors known to affect word recognition. Indeed, with these lexical factors covaried out, Larsen et al. found no evidence of automatic vigilance. The authors report a more sensitive analysis of 1011 words. Results revealed a small but reliable valence effect, such that negative words (e.g., "shark") elicit slower lexical decisions and naming than positive words (e.g., "beach"). Moreover, the relation between valence and recognition was categorical rather than linear; the extremity of a word's valence did not affect its recognition. This valence effect was not attributable to word length, frequency, orthographic neighborhood size, contextual diversity, first phoneme, or arousal. Thus, the present analysis provides the most powerful demonstration of automatic vigilance to date.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Divisions:	Faculty of Science > Psychology
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Dependency grammar, Lexical grammar, Apperception
Journal or Publication Title:	Emotion
Publisher:	American Psychological Association
ISSN:	1528-3542
Date:	August 2008
Volume:	Vol.8
Number:	No.4
Page Range:	pp. 441-444
Identification Number:	10.1037/1528-3542.8.4.441
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
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URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/372