The Effect Of Task Form On Emotion Words Processing

Numbers of researches on the mechanisms of emotion processing focused on differences between the processing of positive and negative emotions. Some of them suggested that compared to the processing of positive information, the processing of negative information has advantages (e.g. Anderson,1974; Fiske,1980; Hamilton & Zanna,1972) while other suggested it is the processing of negative information which has advantages (e.g. Strauss & Allen,2009). Researchers explained this contradiction with the different point of views such as the meaning of evolution (Pratto & John,1991; Fredrickson,1998). In this paper, this contradiction is interpreted as the results of the differences among task forms.The effect of task form on emotion words processing were examined through three experiments. Experiments 1a and 1b were replication experiments of Unkelbach et al. (2010)'s and Pratto & John (1991)'s experiments with Chinese emotion words. In experiments 2 and 3, the mechanism of emotion words processing is examined in both direct-judgment paradigm and emotional Stroop paradigm in different perceptual fluencies and distraction-task conditions. Results showed that:(1) in direct-judgment paradigm, when the unconscious processing is interfered, the advantage of the processing of positive words remain the same as when the unconscious processing is not interfered; when the conscious processing is interfered, the advantage of the processing of positive words was minished. (2) in emotional Stroop paradigm, when the unconscious processing is interfered, the advantage of the processing of negative words was minished; when the conscious processing is interfered, the advantage of the processing of negative words remain the same as when the conscious processing is not interfered.