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.