The influence of context on the processing of emotional and neutral adjectives--an ERP study

The study investigated brain responses to emotional and neutral adjectives within contexts of varying emotional valence. Participants were randomly assigned to 3 context groups where they viewed random sequences of emotional and neutral adjectives intermixed with: emotional pictures (emotional context), neutral pictures (neutral context) and blank screens (zero context). Within the emotional context group the P3 potential was more pronounced in response to positive than either negative or neutral adjectives, and positive picture context impacted positive and negative adjectives differently. In the neutral context group the P2 and P3 potentials were greater in response to the positive adjectives as compared to the neutral ones. There was also a greater negativity of the N400 potential in response to the neutral adjectives. Within the zero context group only the N400 effect was visible. The seeming preference for positive words can be explained in terms of the specific positivity offset phenomenon.