Emotion Priming in People with Williams Syndrome

Emotion categories configure the basic semantic knowledge of the human cognitive structure. Previous studies with people with Williams syndrome (WS) investigated their ability to process basic emotions and the dimensions of emotional valences. However, little is known about the categorization of emotions from the subordinate perspective of lexical words in people with WS. In this study, emotion priming was used as the research paradigm. Three types of emotional valence were used as stimuli: positive, neutral, and negative. Each emotional valence was used as a prime matched to a target in one of these same three types of emotional valence. All participants were asked to judge whether the prime and the target were matched in their emotional valence. People with WS (n = 14, 11M/3F, CA = 10.49, and MA = 6.57) showed priming patterns for emotion valences like those of the typically developing controls. When positive primes were presented, accuracy was higher for positive and negative targets than neutral targets. When neutral primes were presented, accuracy was highest for negative targets. When negative primes were presented, accuracy was the lowest for negative targets. All participants showed high priming accuracy for positive emotions; however, they confused neutral with positive targets. A negative priming effect was observed when negative primes preceded negative targets. Considering previous findings that people with WS show developmental delays in the basic emotions of anger and surprise, this study concludes that people with WS responded least accurately to the classification of emotional valence. The findings regarding the categorization of emotions in people with WS not only advance our understanding of their emotion knowledge and socioemotional cognition but also confirm the superficial enrichment of lexical semantics with weak conceptual change in people with WS. This weakness may result in impaired contextual integration in people with WS.