Juan Haro

Aims and objectives: Most researchers assume language non-selective lexical access: when a target is presented, words sharing form and/or meaning are activated regardless of language and may compete for identification. Lexical decision studies have explored the lateral inhibition (LI) mechanism using orthographic substitution neighbors (words that differ by one letter). Although an inhibitory neighborhood priming effect is commonly observed (i.e., longer latencies when a higher-frequency neighbor primes a target compared to an unrelated word), inconsistencies in the literature remain. This is likely due to the influence of variables that were not fully addressed, such as orthographic and phonological (OP) consistency and L2 daily use. Based on the possible effect of those variables, the robustness of LI as an explanatory mechanism was evaluated. Methodology: We examined the inhibitory neighborhood priming effect in a masked priming lexical decision task, manipulating the OP consistency through the primes’ orthographic and phonological neighborhood sizes. A total of 152 European Portuguese (L1)–English (L2) bilinguals who varied in L2 daily use participated in the study. Data and analysis: Response times (RTs) and error percentages (E%) were analyzed using mixed-effects models. Variables related to the participants entered the models as covariables. Conclusions: The inhibitory effect was replicated in European Portuguese (L1)–English (L2) bilinguals, although modulated by neighborhood size and L2 daily use. Results were validated by a control study, and simulations with Multilink+ showed strong correlations between cycle times and RTs. Originality: This is the first time the orthographic and phonological neighborhood size of the prime words and the daily use of the L2 were considered when examining cross-linguistic neighborhood effects. These variables modulated the results, showing that the effect occurs in the early stages of the visual word recognition process. Implications: Theoretical implications are discussed, considering alternative mechanisms to LI as possible underlying competition mechanisms.

The emotion triggered by emotion words is usually reduced in a second language (L2) compared with a first language (L1). In L1, several features contribute to the representation of affective meaning in highly emotion prototypical words (e.g., valence, arousal), particularly feelings and interoception (internal bodily sensations). We had English-Spanish L2 users to rate Spanish words on various features to examine whether the prototypicality of emotion words is determined by the same features in L1 and L2. Prototypicality obtained higher ratings in L2 than in L1, in contrast, all the other features had lower ratings in L2. Interoception predicted prototypicality significantly less in L2 than in L1, suggesting that L2 users do not rely on body sensation as much as L1 users when evaluating emotional prototypicality and supporting the theory of disembodied emotion in L2. The ratings provide a database of emotion words in L2 Spanish with new features like prototypicality, feelings and interoception.

This article presents AI-generated estimates for five characteristics of German words: concreteness, valence, arousal, age of acquisition (AoA), and word familiarity. The estimates were generated using GPT-4o-mini, which was selected due to its good performance in previous studies. Validation studies were conducted comparing the AI-generated estimates with both human ratings and previously generated AI data to ensure their usefulness for research applications. The main results are as follows. The GPT estimates of word concreteness, valence, and arousal show a strong correlation with human ratings but are not better than the best available AI-generated estimates based on semantic vectors. The GPT estimates of AoA are good approximations of human ratings and outperform other available alternatives (except for human ratings), especially after the model was fine-tuned based on 2,000 human ratings. Fine-tuned AI-generated estimates of word familiarity have better predictive value than word frequency for word recognition in lexical decision tasks and vocabulary tests. Estimates for concreteness, valence, arousal, and AoA are available for 167,000 words, which are likely to be known to more than 90% of participants in typical adult studies. Word familiarity estimates are presented for 928,000 word forms. All data and codes, including newly collected human familiarity ratings for 11,000 words, are publicly available at https://osf.io/ghjd2/. The data may be freely used for research purposes, but not for commercial purposes.

In this study, we addressed the influence of individual differences in personality traits measured trough a Big Five personality test, and sociodemographic variables such as age or gender, in the processing of words conveying discrete emotions. To this aim, we relied on data from a large-scale lexical decision task in Spanish. The analyses with linear mixed models revealed several interactions between emotional content and both personality traits and sociodemographic factors during word recognition. In this sense, there was a facilitation for fear-related words, mainly in male participants. Also, disgust interacted with agreeableness and conscientiousness, showing an inhibition for disgust-related words in participants scoring low in agreeableness or high in conscientiousness. Sadness-related words were processed more slowly in men, while this effect was absent in women. Finally, happiness-related words showed an interaction with openness to experience, age and gender. We discuss the complex interplay between the emotional connotation of words and individual differences. All in all, our findings emphasise the need to take individual characteristics into account when examining emotional word processing.

The nature and processing of semantic illusions (SI; when speakers fail to notice an anomalous word in a sentence that is contextually perfectly aligned with world knowledge) have been largely studied during first language comprehension. Although this issue is not free of controversy, findings sustain The Node Structure Theory, according to which SI is a phonological and/or semantic priming effect which occurs due to phonological and/or semantic links existing between the correct and the anomalous word. However, the question as to whether the same underlying mechanisms can be found in bilinguals and whether the effect is modulated by age of language acquisition (AoA) and language dominance remains unexplored. The aim of this study was to examine this issue on sequential European Portuguese-German bilinguals (and their respective control groups) using a self-paced reading paradigm. The sentences’ language, AoA (early vs. late), and type of target word used (correct vs. anomalous) were manipulated. Results showed the occurrence of SI, independently of language and AoA. Therefore, findings suggest that SI occur due to a semantic overlap between critical words and are similarly processed in L1 and L2.

This work presents a large lexical decision mega-study in Spanish, with 918 participants and 7500 words, focusing on emotional content and individual differences. The main objective was to investigate how emotional valence and arousal influence word recognition, controlling for a large number of confounding variables. In addition, as a unique contribution, the study examined the modulation of these effects by individual differences. Results indicated a significant effect of valence and arousal on lexical decision times, with an interaction between these variables. A linear effect of valence was observed, with slower recognition times for negative words and faster recognition times for positive words. In addition, arousal showed opposite effects in positive and negative words. Importantly, the effect of emotional variables was affected by personality traits (extroversion, conscientiousness and openness to experience), age and gender, challenging the 'one-size-fits-all' interpretation of emotional word processing. All data collected in the study is available to the research community: https://osf.io/cbtqy. This includes data from each participant (RTs, errors and individual differences scores), as well as values of concreteness (n = 1690), familiarity (n = 1693) and age of acquisition (n = 2171) of the words collected exclusively for this study. This is a useful resource for researchers interested not only in emotional word processing, but also in lexical processing in general and the influence of individual differences.

The cross-linguistic gender congruency effect (GCE; a facilitation on gender retrieval for translations of the same gender) is a robust phenomenon analysed almost exclusively with late bilinguals. However, it is important to ascertain whether it is modulated by age of acquisition (AoA) and language proficiency. We asked 64 early and late bilinguals of European Portuguese and German to do a forward and backward translation task. A measure of language balance was calculated through the DIALANG test. Analyses included this factor along with the gender congruency between translations, the target language, and the AoA of both languages, among others. Results showed a GCE for European Portuguese that was independent of the AoA and greater the higher the language imbalance. We propose that changes in proficiency in any of the languages create situations of dependency between them which allow cross-linguistic gender interaction to occur and effects to emerge depending on gender transparency.

Studying epistemically unwarranted beliefs (EUB) is relevant at basic, applied, and social levels. However, EUB scales validated in Spain are scare. Consequently, we aimed to develop and validate a scale of this kind. One thousand four hundred and sixty participants answered to a preliminary version of the questionnaire. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed the final form of PEUBI: a 36‐item instrument with five related factors (Superstitions, Occultism and Pseudoscience, Traditional Religion, Extraordinary Life Forms, and Conspiracy Theories). The results showed that the items were little affected by social desirability bias. PEUBI factor scores showed good internal consistency (estimates between .85 and .97), test–retest reliability (estimates between .75 and .93), and convergent‐divergent validity. Sociodemographic differences were also explored, observing lower levels of EUB in men, elders, from pure sciences and technology, and atheists. In conclusion, PEUBI is a valid and reliable psychometric instrument to assess paranormal, pseudoscientific and conspiracy beliefs in Spanish adults.

Evaluative markers of diminution and augmentation typically express quantity or intensity. Prior evidence suggests that they also convey emotions, although it remains unexplored as to whether this function is mediated by their role in expressing quantification/intensification. Here we investigated the effects of evaluative suffixes on the assessment of word affective properties by asking participants (N = 300) to score valence and arousal features for augmentatives, diminutives and base words with negative, positive or neutral valence. Diminutives and, to a lesser extent, augmentatives were assessed more positively than base forms in negative words and more negatively than bases in positive words. The capacity of diminution to express attenuated emotions is in line with its function in conveying quantity. By contrast, valence effects for augmentatives suggests a role in expressing pejoration and amelioration that is not mediated by quantification. With regard to arousal, negative, neutral and positive augmentatives showed higher scores than base words, which, in addition, were also rated higher than diminutives. These incremental effects suggest that suffixes which convey larger quantity are also associated with increased arousal. Thus, with the exception of valence effects in augmentatives, it seems that evaluative suffixes encode both valence and arousal through quantification.