Lab Report on

‘Effects of Emotional and Neutral Words on Response Time’

Course: PSY101L
Section: 1
Semester: Spring 2020

Abstract
The objective of this experiment was to find the differential time in responses to emotional and
neutral words. A 22 year old, female participant took part in the experiment after signing a
consent form. As the prime material, a list of words, the stimuli, was prepared for the experiment
which contained a combination of emotional and neutral words, randomly set. A column for the
response word to each stimuli and another for reaction time followed the first. A timer
(stopwatch of a phone) was used to record the response time between uttering the stimuli and the
participant’s response. The participant was presented with the stimuli, verbally, while was asked
to respond back with one word, which could not be an antonym. After finishing the whole
experiment, the total time for responses was computed, which for our participant was 2 minutes,
32 seconds. However, the participant took longer time to respond to certain words than the
others. This may be due to the participant undergoing varying emotions on hearing each type of
words. How each word provoked the participant and whether there is a relation between a
person’s emotional processing to the nature of a word is what we wanted to explore through this
experiment. Several studies have been conducted by psychologists till date to investigate the
effects of emotional stimuli on associations of memory by either focusing on studies of accuracy
and response bias or only on response time data. In our experiment, to keep things simple, we
only used response time.
Introduction
Scientists and psychologists have tried to interrogate the retention difference between emotional
and neutral materials for ages. Most findings have shown that emotional information is more
frequently remembered than neutral information. This detail has been typically exhibited by
influences that ask participants to recall previously learned emotional stimuli (Christianson,
1992). According to most studies, emotional stimuli produce greater engagement of attention
during the first stage of mental processing. Such early engagement of attention takes time and
effort to be completed, and subsequently slows down response times (Pratto & John, 1991;
Wentura, Rothermund, & Bak, 2000). Even though the variables used to reach such accuracy and
response bias have led to crucial findings, aiding a deeper understanding of how emotion and
memory interact, further knowledge can be gained by focusing on other behavioral variables. For
instance, little importance has been given to response time data in recognition memory
experiments that use emotional words as stimuli. Whereas, response time has been considerably
informative in studies about emotion and word processing interactions (Jaeger, R. Bourscheid,
Stein & Philippe de Faria Santos, 2017). Therefore in our experiment, the variables were:
Independent Variable - Words

Dependent Variable – Response Time, Emotions

Based on previous studies, our research question is:

‘Do emotional stimuli trigger memories of emotional/past events?’

Hypothesis:

‘Response time to emotional words is higher than that to neutral words.’

In order to test this hypothesis, we asked the participant to respond to a set of randomly picked
emotional and neutral words, with one word. The time to respond to each word was recorded to
see how much longer or less it takes the participant to respond to a neutral word as opposed to an
emotional word, which according to our hypothesis should take longer. Theoretically, this
experiment was supposed to show me how fast or slow does an individual respond to a randomly
chosen emotional or neutral word. However, a practical implication of this study for me could be
to understand how a human being associates memory or thoughts to simple words based on
which their reactions show interesting changes.
Objective of the Study
The objective of this study was to investigate whether response time differs between emotional
and neutral words.

Rationale of the study

This study is important because it helps us to understand human behavior better. Along with
differences in response time, a person’s reaction to a certain word (or stimuli) can also be
observed through this experiment. One of the essential measures used to distinguish individual
responses in emotion processing is the ability to interpret emotions from facial expressions,
which according to (Adolphs, 2002) depends on the neural emotion processing network.
However, this is subject to differences in character traits (Matsumoto et al., 2000). Such tests of
identifying emotion from reactions or a person’s facial expressions are broadly used to explain
discrepancies in Emotional Recognition Ability (ERA) in psychological disorders, such as
depression (e.g., Mikhailova, Vladimirova, Iznak, Tsusulkovskaya, & Sushko, 1996) and autism
(e.g., Harms, Martin & Wallace, 2010). Hence, ones change in reaction time and reaction itself,
as a response to the recognition of emotions can be used to analyze the effects of varying words
on human beings. These effects range from psychological to physiological gestures. For instance,
in my experience with the experiment, I have come to notice changes in my participant’s
physical gesture and also body language upon hearing certain words. While some of the words
evoked quick and impassive responses, others seemed to have made the participant laugh, giggle,
twitch eyebrows and even seem nostalgic at some points. A few words made the participant
uncomfortable perhaps to the point where they struggled to utter what even came in their mind as
the first response. Such emotional behavior can be explained by one of the most popular theories
of emotions, renowned as the ‘James-Lange Theory’ of emotion. Formulated by psychologist
William James and physiologist Carl Lange, this theory suggests that the emotional reaction of
an individual stems from their physiological reaction which is the primary response to an event
or stimuli. The human being’s ability to filter their words may not be so well functional when it
comes to their physical reaction/body language. This study, is imperative for me to investigate
not just the theory behind responses to a stimuli but also to understand how the mechanism of
human brain works when they hear a word.

Hypothesis

‘Response time to emotional words is higher than that to neutral words.’

Method
A study information sheet, a consent form followed by a demographic information form was
handed out to the female participant, who is a 22-year old. For the experiment, a sheet containing
a list of emotional and neutral words was prepared, with two columns to record the responded
word and reaction time. The application of stop watch in a mobile phone was used as a timer.
Once the experiment ended, the total time taken for all the responses was computed.

Participants

A young, female participant aged 22 years who had no special/medical condition that could
obstruct his/her decision-making ability.

Materials
–Emotional and neutral words
– Stop watch (of a smart phone)
–Data sheet to record the response and time

Design and procedure

The participant was welcomed to take a sit and handed out the information sheet containing
details about the whole experiment. Later, a consent form was handed out and signed by the
participant followed by any questions by the participant regarding the study. A thorough briefing
about how the experiment will be conducted was given.
For the stimuli, there were 15 neutral and 15 emotional words, which were all randomly set in a
column. The words were randomly uttered, one at a time. The participant was asked to respond
back with a word to the word presented. It was made clear that the response must not be an
antonym. The response was noted beside the stimulus word. A stop watch from a smart phone
was started as soon as a stimulus was presented and stopped as soon as the participant uttered the
response. The total and mean response times were recorded at the back of the paper. At the end
of the study, the participant was given a paper to write her experiences about the study.

Data processing and statistical analysis

Total reaction time:
For neutral words = 48.65 seconds
For emotional words = 90.59 seconds

Mean reaction time:

For neutral words = 3.22 seconds
For emotional words = 6.04 seconds

Results

Table 1

Response Time to Emotional and Neutral Words

Type of words Total reaction time Mean reaction time

(Seconds) (Seconds)

Neutral 48.35 3.22

Emotional 90.59 6.04

Graph
Discussion
The total reaction time for the participant was 2 minutes and 32 seconds. It took her longer time
to respond to certain words than the others. According to the James-Lange Theory, she did
exhibit physiological reaction to a few of the stimuli, however her overall motion remained
static. The variable of time differences although were distinctive. To neutral words like
‘Classroom’ and ‘Watch’, her responses were ‘Porashona’ meaning studying and ‘Ticking’.
Time taken to respond to these two words were 3 seconds, 5 centiseconds and 4 seconds, 5
centiseconds respectively. On the other hand, to emotional words like ‘Joy’ and ‘Mother’, her
responses were ‘Paint’ and ‘Nice’. It took her 25 seconds, 5 centiseconds and 7 seconds, 66
centiseconds for these comebacks, which was more than the time taken to respond back to the
neutral stimuli. On hearing the word ‘joy’, the participant smiled immediately and looked around
the room, as if looking for the emotion therein. Correspondingly, when I uttered the word
‘mother’, the participant shifted her glance immediately and stared outside the window, unable to
respond back. It seemed, as if, she was trying to make an effort to come up with something as
opposed to expressing her natural reaction. These reactions were surprising and fascinating to
observe. It shows how a mere word, can evoke unpredictable emotions in a human being,
affecting both their states of mind and being.
Upon computing the average time taken to all emotional and neutral words, we have found that
the participant took 3.22 seconds on average, to respond to all the neutral words while she took
6.04 seconds on average, to react back to all the emotional words, which is almost double. This
proves our hypothesis. A person does take longer time to process emotional words compared to
neutral ones. An individual’s daily encounters in life are usually blended with emotional
relevance (A. KENSINGER & CORKIN, 2003). Words that lack emotional significance is
unlikely to be pondered upon for as long as those which trigger memories or emotions. These
memories could either be good or bad. It depends on the experiences and associations that the
individual create with the stimuli.
Conversely, the differences in response time can also be explained by how contrarily recollection
of a memory and identification of familiarity work. These two are separate memory retrieval
processes. While recollection has been found to be a slower attention-demanding process, studies
on familiarity have shown faster and more automatic responses. (Yonelinas, 2002). One of the
major limitations of this experiment was that, it was not conducted in a controlled environment
or lab.
Human thoughts in my opinion, are complex to understand with stimuli as simple as words. Even
though their responses may have varying and wide rooms of interpretations, without getting an
explanation out of the very participant to have responded indifferently, it is hard to put a lid on
whether their memory associations were due to a certain trigger of emotion or simply due to
them not being able to draw a relevance to the stimuli. Overall, this study has been useful in
determining whether effects of emotional words on response time is longer than those of neutral
words.
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APPENDIX
• Participant information sheet
• Signed consent form
• Demographic Information form
• Data sheet
• Graph (i.e. figure)