Abstract

The goal of the present study was to investigate whether 6–9-year old children and adults show similar neural responses to affective words. An event-related neuroimaging paradigm was used in which both age cohorts performed the same auditory lexical decision task (LDT). The results show similarities in (auditory) lexico-semantic network activation as well as in areas associated with affective information. In both age cohorts’ activations were stronger for positive than for negative words, thus exhibiting a positivity superiority effect. Children showed less activation in areas associated with affective information in response to all three valence categories than adults. Our results are discussed in the light of computational models of word recognition, and previous findings of affective contributions to LDT in adults.

Details

Title
Neural correlates of affective contributions to lexical decisions in children and adults
Author
Sylvester, Teresa 1 ; Liebig, Johanna 1 ; Jacobs, Arthur M 1 

 Freie Universität Berlin, Department of Education and Psychology, Experimental and Neurocognitive Psychology, Berlin, Germany (GRID:grid.14095.39) (ISNI:0000 0000 9116 4836); Freie Universität Berlin, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience Berlin, Berlin, Germany (GRID:grid.14095.39) (ISNI:0000 0000 9116 4836) 
Publication year
2021
Publication date
2021
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2477376163
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2021. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.