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Published on: June 29, 2021
The bidirectional influence between emotional language and inhibitory control in Chinese: An ERP study
Huili Wang1, Xiaobing Sun2, Xueyan Li3
1School of Foreign Languages, Hangzhou City University, Hangzhou 310015, China; Hangzhou Collaborative Innovation Institute of Language Services, Hangzhou 310015, China.
Abstract:
The bidirectional influence between emotional language and inhibitory processes has been studied in alphabetic languages, highlighting the need for additional investigation in nonalphabetic languages to explore potential cross-linguistic differences. The present ERP study investigated the bidirectional influence in the context of Mandarin, a language with unique linguistic features and neural substrates. In Experiment 1, emotional adjectives preceded the Go/NoGo cue. The ERPs revealed that negative emotional language facilitated inhibitory control. In Experiment 2, with a Go/NoGo cue preceding the emotional language, the study confirmed that inhibitory control facilitated the semantic integration of negative language in Chinese, whereas the inhibited state may not affect deeper refinement of the emotional content. However, no interaction was observed in positive emotional language processing. These results suggest an interaction between inhibitory control and negative emotional language processing in Chinese, supporting the integrative emotion-cognition view.
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