The effect of emotional valence on concrete and abstract words in L2 lexical processing among Chinese–English learners

TL;DR

The study explores how emotions affect processing of concrete and abstract words in Chinese-English bilinguals.

Contribution

It reveals that emotional valence has distinct effects on concrete and abstract word processing in L2 learners.

Findings

Emotion advantage is stronger for concrete words in accuracy but not reaction time.

Abstract words are processed faster and more accurately overall.

Emotional information compensates for limited sensorimotor grounding in abstract words.

Abstract

Emotional valence influences word processing, and this effect is modulated by word concreteness, but findings remain inconsistent in L2 contexts—especially among Chinese-English learners.

Based on the Embodied Cognition Theory, we adopted a 3 (valence: positive/neutral/negative) × 2 (concreteness: abstract/concrete) mixed-factorial design and a lexical decision task to test 57 late Chinese-English bilinguals.

(1) The valence × concreteness interaction was significant in accuracy (emotion advantage was larger for concrete than abstract words) but not in reaction time; (2) The main effect of concreteness was significant: abstract words were processed faster and more accurately than concrete words.

Emotional valence exerts functionally different effects on L2 concrete/abstract word processing—concrete words benefit more from emotional facilitation via sensorimotor connections, while abstract words rely on emotional information to compensate for limited sensorimotor grounding.

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