Emojis and affective priming in visual word recognition

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Linguistics

Background:

• Emojis supplement non-verbal cues in digital communication.
• The cognitive processing of emojis during reading is not well understood.
• Understanding emoji influence is crucial for digital communication research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of emoji emotional valence and face-status on visual word recognition.
• To examine how emoji features influence early stages of reading.
• To explore affective priming effects in emoji-mediated lexical decision tasks.

Main Methods:

• Conducted two online experiments with 92 university students.
• Utilized a priming paradigm with congruent and incongruent emoji-word pairs.
• Manipulated emoji face-status (face vs. non-face) and word target valence (positive vs. negative).

Main Results:

• Face emojis showed a processing advantage over non-face emojis, indicating automatic attention.
• An interaction between prime-target congruency and valence was observed.
• Positive emoji-word pairs facilitated lexical decisions, while negative pairs did not, suggesting valence-specific priming.

Conclusions:

• Emoji content integrates rapidly during visual word recognition.
• Face-like emojis and positive stimuli capture attention during digital reading.
• Affective priming mechanisms are valence-specific in emoji-enhanced communication.