3.1 Method
Participants. The same 25 Mandarin native speakers participated
in the experiment 1.
Materials. A total of 150 Mandarin words were visually presented.
Half of the stimuli were the target stimuli presented aurally in
Experiment 1. The other half were foils, selected from the ANEW database
following the identical selection criteria as the targets. Twenty-five
filler words were selected per valence category, and then translated
into Mandarin. All words comprised two characters. Across target and
foil words, both Valence and Arousal ratings were equated for each
emotion category, including Negative words (mean target and foil valence
2.68 vs 2.45, β = 0.264, se = 0.155, t = 1.70, ns; mean target and foil
arousal 5.85 vs 5.89, β = -0.073, se = 0.131, t= -0.56, ns), Positive
words (mean target and foil valence 7.53 vs. 7.55, β = -0,019, se =
0.154, t = -0.13, ns; mean target and foil arousal 5.73 vs. 5.72, β =
0.014, se = 0.164, t= 0.09, ns) and Negative words (mean target and foil
valence 5.11 vs. 5.09, β = 0.026, se = 0.081, t = 0.32, ns; mean target
and foil arousal 3.75 vs. 3.86, β = -0.117, se = 0.128, t= -0.92, ns).
Procedure. Participants were comfortably seated, facing a computer
screen situated at a distance of 70 cm in a dimly lit, sound-attenuated
room wearing a 64 channel Biosemi electrocap. Each trial began with a
fixation cross, followed by a written Mandarin word. Participants were
asked to determine whether they had heard the word in the previous
experiment and press the corresponding button (yes or no )
on an external response box. Subsequent to the response, a blink prompt
was displayed for 1 second prior to the onset of the next trial. A
practice block of 5 trials initiated participants to the task
requirements. EEG was recorded throughout the session, in identical
fashion to that of the first experiment.