Differential Responses for Emotional Visual and Auditory Word Recognition in First vs. Second Language

Abstract

Aims: This study explored how valence and modality affect emotional word recognition in unbalanced Spanish-English bilinguals. Design: Two lexical decision tasks were used: a visual task (Study 1) and an auditory task (Study 2), conducted in either L1 or L2. Data and Analysis: Data from 80 (Study 1) and 40 (Study 2) unbalanced Spanish-English bilinguals living in an L1-majority country were analyzed using repeated-measure ANOVAs with Bonferroni-corrected post hoc tests. In both studies, performance was assessed through discrimination (d’), bias (C), and reaction times. Findings: Results revealed positive words were recognized more accurately and quickly, reflecting a positivity advantage. L1 groups showed better discrimination and fewer false alarms than L2, suggesting more efficient processing. Modality effects varied: L1 participants responded faster to positive pseudowords visually, while L2 participants were more sensitive to emotional pseudowords auditorily. Originality: This study is the first to directly compare valence effects across visual and auditory modalities in unbalanced Spanish-English bilinguals using parallel lexical decision paradigms, providing novel evidence on how emotional processing differs between L1 and L2. Conclusions: These findings support the density hypothesis, suggesting that positive words benefit from higher semantic cohesion. A stronger liberal bias for emotional words in L2 may reflect compensatory strategies under lexical uncertainty. Implications: findings underscore the interplay of language proficiency, modality, and emotion in bilingual lexical access, with implications for bilingual education, cognitive assessments, and emotional processing research.