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How Language Shapes Emotion: An fMRI study of Emotion Verbalization in First and Second Languages
Poster Session A - Sandbox Series, Thursday, October 24, 10:00 - 11:30 am, Great Hall 3 and 4
This poster is part of the Sandbox Series.
Yuto Aki1, Takumi Uchihara1, Motoaki Sugiura2, Hyeonjeong Jeong1; 1Graduate School of International Cultural Studies, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, 2Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan
[Introduction] Human language goes beyond communication. It has the power to shape and rewire the emotional systems in our minds. The psychological constructionist view of emotion (Barrett, 2017) claims that language actively shapes our emotions by conceptually categorizing sensations of “core affect”, experienced in terms of valence and arousal. Empirical research (Nook et al., 2021; Ortner, 2015) has indeed demonstrated that verbalizing emotions in one’s native language (L1) changes its representation, leading to heightened difficulty in regulation as well increased subjective emotional intensity. However, it remains unknown whether and how similar changes occur when using a late-learned second language (L2) especially from a neural mechanism perspective. Our present fMRI study is the first to explore how verbalizing emotions in the L1 and L2 alters neural emotion representation and subjective emotional intensity. Furthermore, we explore how L2 oral proficiency and daily use contribute to these changes in L2. [Participants] 40 healthy right-handed Japanese L1 speakers will participate, all with intermediate to high proficiency in their L2 English. They will complete a language use questionnaire and an English speaking task. [Stimuli] 120 affective images taken from the Nencki Affective Picture System (NAPS). [Experimental design and procedure] The fMRI experiment consists of two main tasks: an Emotion Naming task and an Object Naming task, performed in either L1 Japanese or L2 English. Both tasks are always performed immediately after the Look task, where participants view affect-evoking images (without verbal activity) and assess their emotional intensity on a scale of -5 (extremely negative) to 5 (extremely positive). In the Emotion Naming task, they see the same images and verbalize their dominant emotion in either L1 or L2 before rating their emotion. In the Object Naming task, the same procedure follows except that participants name an object in the image instead of their emotions. This controls for the effect of word retrieval on emotion representation and the difficulty of word retrieval between L1 and L2. All emotional images are counterbalanced across tasks and languages, ensuring similar valence and arousal levels. [Data Analysis] In the behavioral data analysis, we examine changes in emotion ratings between conditions: [Emotion Naming–Look] and [Object Naming–Look] rating changes between L1 and L2 conditions. In the brain data, we compare brain activity before and after emotion naming and object naming in L1 and L2. In addition, within the L2 condition, we explore correlations between the amount of language use and oral linguistic proficiency with emotion naming effects on ratings and neural activity. [Expected Results] We expect that [Emotion Naming–Look] changes will be larger in the L1 than in the L2 condition. We also crucially predict that Emotion Naming brain activity in L1 will reveal a distinct pattern of neural representation that subserves linguistic emotion compared to the L2. Finally, within the L2 condition, the amount of language use will be more sensitive to emotional ratings in L2 and its neural activation patterns.
Topic Areas: Multilingualism, Meaning: Lexical Semantics