Abstract
Emotion effects in event-related potentials (ERPs) during reading have been observed at very short latencies of around 100 to 200 ms after word onset. The nature of these effects remains a matter of debate: First, it is possible that they reflect semantic access, which might thus occur much faster than proposed by most reading models. Second, it is possible that associative learning of a word’s shape might contribute to the emergence of emotion effects during visual processing. The present study addressed this question by employing an associative learning paradigm on pseudowords. In a learning session, pseudowords were associated with positive, neutral or negative valence by means of monetary gain, loss or zero-outcome. Crucially, half of the pseudowords were learned in the visual modality, while the other half was presented acoustically, allowing for experimental separation of associated valence and physical percept. In a test session 1 to 2 days later, acquired pseudowords were presented in an old/new decision task while we recorded event-related potentials. Behavioural data showed an advantage for gain-associated pseudowords both during learning and in a delayed old/new task. In the visual test session, early emotion effects in ERPs were limited to visually acquired pseudowords, but absent for acoustically acquired pseudowords. These results imply that associative learning of a word’s visual features might play an important role in the emergence of emotion effects at the stage of perceptual processing.