Valence and concreteness in item recognition: Evidence against the affective embodiment account

Bireta, Tamra J., Guitard, Dominic, Neath, Ian and Surprenant, Aimée M. 2023. Valence and concreteness in item recognition: Evidence against the affective embodiment account. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 10.3758/s13423-023-02442-8 Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

The Affective Embodiment Account posits that sensorimotor interactions play an important role in learning and processing concrete words whereas experiences from emotional states play an important role in learning and processing abstract words. Because of this, there should be greater enhancement of valence for abstract than for concrete words and therefore there should be an interaction between valence and concreteness. Although this prediction has been observed in a number of tasks, very few studies have looked specifically at memory. Three experiments are reported that assess whether valence interacts with concreteness in recognition. In Experiment 1, recognition of concrete words was better than abstract, but there was no difference as a function of whether the words were positive or negative and there was no interaction. Experiment 2 compared positive and neutral words and Experiment 3 compared negative and neutral words; in both, there was a concreteness effect but no effect of valence and no interaction. These results replicate previous findings that when positive and negative words are equated more fully, valence has no effect on recognition, and also suggest a limit on the scope of the Affective Embodiment Account.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Psychology
Publisher:	Springer
ISSN:	1069-9384
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	5 January 2024
Date of Acceptance:	16 December 2023
Last Modified:	14 Feb 2024 03:18
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/165298

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