Congruency, attentional set, and laterality effects with emotional words

The present study investigated the influence of attention and word-emotion congruency on auditory asymmetries with stimuli that include verbal and emotional components. Words were presented dichotically to 80 participants and were pronounced in either congruent or incongruent emotional tones. Participants were asked to identify the presence of a target word or emotion under 1 of 2 conditions. The blocked condition required detection of a word or emotional target in separate blocks. In the randomized condition, the target was changed across trials by means of a postcue. A right-ear advantage (REA) and a left-ear advantage (LEA) were found for word and emotion targets, respectively. However, the finding of a Condition x Stimulus Type x Ear x Congruency interaction indicated that in the randomized condition, a REA was obtained for words when the stimuli were congruent and a LEA was observed for emotions when the stimuli were incongruent. The findings suggest that randomizing the target reduced the influence of the attentional set established by blocking the target. It is likely that this promoted the detection of hemispheric interference in the randomized condition.