North South University

Reaction Time to Neutral and Emotional Words

Submitted by:

Name: Gazi Adiba Tahsin

Student ID: 2233058030

Submitted to:

Fariea Bakul
School of Humanities and Social Sciences Department
of History and Philosophy

Psychology Lab Report 01

 Abstract
The human brain, considered to be the most complex machine on earth, is a matter

of great intrigue among the civilian and scientist community alike. This study

examined the cognitive processing of emotional and neutral words to gain insight

into how the brain interprets and responds to emotive language. Understanding

emotional processing at a neurological level can help explain human behaviors,

relationships, and mental health. Previous research has shown that emotional words

elicit different brain activity and reaction times compared to neutral words lacking

emotional associations. However, individual differences exist based on personal

experiences. The current experiment aimed to test whether emotional words

produce faster or slower responses relative to neutral words. It followed a within-

subjects design with a sample of one female undergraduate student. The participant

was presented with a list of 30 words, half labeled as emotional and half labeled as

neutral. The experimenter recorded the reaction times as the participant verbally

responded to each word pronunciation. The results showed that emotional words

yielded significantly longer average response times (3.80 seconds) than neutral

words (2.10 seconds), supporting the hypothesis. This finding is consistent with

prior evidence that processing emotive content requires additional cognitive

resources, slowing comprehension and reactions. However, the study acknowledges

that words can take on emotional associations depending on an individual's unique

background and memories. Overall, the study provides initial insight into how

linguistic and subjective factors intersect to shape emotional word interpretation. It

adds to our understanding of how emotions are cognitively appraised and handled

on a moment-to-moment basis. Further research with larger and more diverse

samples is still needed to account for individual variability and systematically

replicate these findings. The implications could inform theories of language-

emotion interactions as well as strategies for managing mood and mental well-

being.
 Introduction
The human body has a total of five senses, namely - smell, sight, hearing, taste,
and touch. These five senses help us perceive the world around us and, all
together, make sense of everything that we experience. The psychological
experiment conducted for this research was based on the sense of hearing, or, in
terms of psychology, auditory perception. Auditory perception allows us to
detect, discriminate, identify, and comprehend all the sounds we hear every day
and give a proper response to the heard sounds. What this experiment focuses on,
to be exact, is the difference between the response time of the test taker when she
hears emotional words versus when she hears neutral words.

We aim to find out what this difference in the response time might imply about
the test taker’s personality.

Literature Review
Among the various studies done on the reaction time difference between
emotional words and neutral words, there is a model which supports that, “the
cognitive processing of emotional information tends to be faster than the
cognitive processing of neutral information because the former is essential to
survival and/or to fight or flight responses,”(Jaegar et al, 2017). Several studies
that examined the processing of emotional words through lexical decision tasks
have provided support for this account (Jaegar et al, 2017). However, there are
studies that also support the opposite; that emotional stimuli required longer
responses than neutral stimuli (Jaegar et al, 2017).

An Important factor that should be considered, which influences the recognition

of emotional words, is the mood of the participant. Sereno et al. state in their
article, “According to Bower's (1981) notion of mood congruency, there is a link
between mood state and cognitive processes such as attention and memory,
whereby processing is facilitated when the affective tone of received information
matches the valence of the mood” (2015).

Thus, we can see that though there are differences in the research studies’ results,
the variables surrounding the participants can have an impact on the final results.
Emotional and Neutral Words
Words are how we communicate with people. It helps us build connections, voice
our opinions, and present our thoughts to the world. As such, It is bound have a
crucial impact on our minds and memory. In an article by Ferré et al,
“Emotionally charged words are usually better remembered than neutral words’’
(2008). In another article named ‘The Neuroscience Behind Our Words’ it has
been proved that, “negative words release stress and anxiety-inducing hormones
in subjects” (BRM, 2019).

Purpose
The aim of this experiment is to find out whether there is a difference in the
reaction time of the participant when she hears a neutral word versus when she
hears an emotional word.

Hypothesis
The response time of emotional words took longer than neutral words,
concluding that the nature of words affects the cognitive process in an individual.

Variables
There are 2 variables in this experiment.

1. Independent Variable (IV): The independent variable of this experiment is the

words
presented to the participant, categorized as neutral words and emotional words.

2. Dependent Variable (DV): The dependent variable of this experiment is the

participant’s reaction time which refers to the amount of time taken by them to
react after hearing each word.

Methodology

Design: Single-subject design was used in this experiment.

Participant: A twenty-one years old (21) female student of North South University
was the participant for the experiment.

Material/Apparatus:
The materials/apparatus used in this experiment are:
 A list of total 30 words (15 emotional words, 15 neutral words)
 A mobile phone used for a stopwatch.
 Pen.

Procedure
The experiment was conducted in a classroom at North South University, after the
participant had agreed to the experiment. The participant arrived timely on the
designated date and time. At first, the participant had been handed out the instruction
form to read. After she read it the instruction was again explained by the experimenter.
The instruction was - Once the experimenter reads out a word, the participant had to
say the word that came to her mind, except she could not say the opposite word.

After all the instructions were clear, the participant signed the consent form. Then the
experimenter read out 30 words one by one, where 15 words were marked ‘N’ (neutral)
and 15 were marked ‘E’(emotional). After reading out each word, the experimenter
refreshed and started the stopwatch to record the time taken for the participant to react.

Then, after the list was completed, the participant's comments regarding her experience
were asked to be written down. Later on, the reaction time of the neutral words and
emotional words were respectively averaged, to find the average reaction time of the
participant., completing the experiment.
 Results

Table 01

Table for Reaction Time for Emotional Words and Neutral Words
Nature of words Total Reaction Time Average Reaction Time
(Seconds) (Seconds)

Emotional Words 33.01 2.20

Neutral Words 26.05 1.73

Table 1 shows the total reaction time and the average reaction time for neutral and
emotional words. For neutral words, the total reaction time recorded is 26.05 seconds,
and the average reaction time is 1.73 seconds. For emotional words, the total reaction
time is 33.01 seconds, and the average reaction time is 2.20 seconds.
 Discussion
From the experiment, we can see that, the average reaction time for the participant is
significantly higher in emotional words than it is in neutral words. The words that she
took a noticeably high time in responding to were, Iron(N), Kiss(E) and Death(E). For
the word Iron, she mainly forgot the Bangla translation of the word, which was the first
thing she wanted to say, hence the delay. For the word Kiss, she took four seconds
which is the second highest for emotional words. The reason might be that the boldness
of the word left her a little perplexed. And for the word death, it could be seen visibly
how deeply she was thinking, it looked like she started pondering the meaning of the
word and all that it entails. It took her 07.41 seconds to respond to the word, which is
the highest time she took to respond to a certain word.
 References
1. Ferré, P., García, T., Fraga, I., Sanchez-Casas, R., & Molero, M. (2010). Memory for
emotional words in bilinguals: Do words have the same emotional intensity in the first and in
the second language? Cognition And Emotion, 24(05).
https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930902985779

2. Horton, L., & Newburg, W. (2019, August 8). The Neuroscience Behind Our Words. BRM
Institute. https://brm.institute/neuroscience-behind-words/

3.Jaeger, A., Bourscheid, F. R., Santos, M., & Stein, L. (2017). Recognition of Emotional
Words: Response Time Effects of Novelty. ReserachGate. :10.1037/pne0000092

4.Sereno, S., Scott, G., Yao, B., & Thaden, I. (2015). Emotion word processing: does mood
make a difference? ResearchGate. :10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01191