Event Authenticity Affect The Processing Of Implied Emotion In Sentence Comprehension

Language carries lots of emotional information.Previous studies have shown that the emotional information in the language will affect the early lexical access and the later syntactic-semantic integration during language processing.Compared with emotion-neutral words,words containing emotional information more strongly activated the left inferior frontal gyrus,fusiform gyrus and middle temporal gyrus,as well as the medial prefrontal cortex,cingulate gyrus and hippocampus.In recent years,the research on implicit emotional words has further revealed,even if there are no explicit emotional words in language(e.g.,"fear"),the implicit emotions generated by integrating semantic information from sentences(e.g.,"Xiao Zhang cut off his finger")induce specific changes in cognitive neural activity.However,the processing mechanism and influencing factors of implicit emotional information processing remain unclear,such as whether implicit emotional processing is affected by the authenticity of emotion-inducing events.Event authenticity refers to whether the event described in the text takes place in a real or fictional situation.With fictional media(such as novels,games,films and short videos)increasingly penetrating into our real life,how people process implicit emotional information in language in fictional situations has become an important research issue.Previous research on explicit emotion found that participants’ emotional responses to fictional events described in language were weaker than to real events.The researchers think this may be due to a lack of empathy or motivation to resolve the event in the fictional situation.However,other studies have found that event authenticity does not affect the processing of explicit emotional information in language,that is,there is no significant difference between the emotional experience of fictional and real events.In addition,some studies have suggested that there is a "safe" space for emotional release when entering fiction world,and emotional responses are stronger in the fiction world than in the real world.So far,there has been no in-depth study on the impact of event authenticity on the processing of implicit emotions in language.Emotional experience of fictional events in non-realistic situations is an important part of people’s daily life.Relevant research will help further reveal the characteristics of language and emotional information processing.The purpose of this research is to investigate whether the elicitation of implied emotions is influenced by the authenticity of events in the process of language reading comprehension.In this study,2(event reality: fictional vs real)* 2(emotion type:negative implied emotion vs neutral emotion)was used to record the electrical activity of the brain(ERP)and the electrical activity of the skin when the subjects were reading sentences under different conditions.In addition,to examine individual differences in emotional processing,the study also measured subjects’ theoretical mind ability,emotional regulation ability,working memory ability and executive control function.The results showed that,first of all,compared with emotion-neutral sentences,the processing of key words(such as "finger" in the above example)in negative implied emotion sentences triggered a sustained positive wave that occurred in 300-800 ms and was widely distributed throughout the whole cortex,which was consistent with previous research results.More importantly,there was a significant interaction between emotion and event authenticity in the early time window of 500-800 ms.The fictional condition induced a positive wave of emotional processing mainly located on the formal side of the brain,while no effect of emotional processing was observed in the real condition.Electrodermal analysis found that implied negative emotion condition triggered a larger skin conductance response than neutral emotion condition.And the emotional effect was moderated by the reality of the event.Consistent with the EEG results,the negative condition in the virtual condition induced a larger skin conductance response than the neutral condition,while there was no significant difference between the negative and neutral emotions in the real condition.Finally,combined with individual difference measurement,this study found that the influence of event authenticity on emotion processing may be regulated by cognitive theory of mind.For participants with better perspective-taking ability,they may better regulate emotional processing according to different situations,but this result needs more experimental evidence to support.Firstly,they can infer implicit emotions in language faster,and secondly,they can better experience negative emotions in virtual contexts.In conclusion,this study reveals that the processing of implied emotions is influenced by the authenticity of events,which may occur in the later stage of semantic processing.Fictional or real contextual knowledge can change the experience and cognition of emotional events.This result supports the Appraisal System is Quiet theory,that is,,individuals will immerse themselves in in fictional situations,fully experiencing and expressing emotions,so emotional reactions in the fiction world will be stronger than in the real world.