Unpleasant words can affect the detection of morphosyntactic errors: An ERP study on individual differences.

In recent years, several ERP studies have investigated whether the early computation of agreement is permeable to the emotional content of words. Some studies have reported interactive effects of grammaticality and emotionality in the left anterior negativity (LAN) component, while others have failed to replicate these results. Furthermore, novel findings suggest that grammatical processing can elicit different neural patterns across individuals. In this study, we aim to investigate whether the interaction between grammaticality and emotionality is restricted to participants with a specific neural profile. Sixty-one female native speakers of Spanish performed an agreement judgment task in noun phrases composed of a determiner, a noun, and an unpleasant or neutral adjective that could agree or disagree in gender with the preceding noun. Our results support the existence of two different brain profiles: negative and positive dominance (individuals showing either larger LAN or larger P600 amplitudes in ungrammatical stimuli than in grammatical ones, respectively). Interestingly, the neural pattern of these two groups diverged at different points along the time course. Thus, the negative dominance group showed grammaticality effects as early as 200 ms, along with parallel and autonomous processing of grammaticality and emotionality at the LAN/N400 time window. Instead, for the positive dominance group an early interaction was found at around 200 ms, evidencing a grammaticality effect that emerged only for unpleasant words. Our findings confirm the role of individual differences in the interplay between grammar and emotion at the neural level and call for the inclusion of this perspective in studies on syntactic processing.

When unpleasantness meets feminines: a behavioural study on gender agreement and emotionality.

The emotional connotation of words is known to affect word and sentence processing. However, the when and how of the interaction between emotion and grammar are still up for debate. In this behavioural experiment, 35 female university students read noun phrases (NPs) composed by a determiner and a noun in their L1 (Spanish), and were asked to indicate if the NPs were grammatically correct (elmasc camareromasc) or not (*lafem tornillomasc; i.e. a gender agreement task). The type of gender (arbitrary/natural), the emotionality (unpleasant/neutral), and the gender class (feminine/masculine) of the nouns were manipulated. We found an overall grammaticality effect, responses being faster in grammatically correct trials than in incorrect ones. However, the effects of emotionality and gender class varied depending on gender type. For arbitrary gender, the grammaticality effect was greater in feminine nouns than in masculine nouns and independent of emotionality. For natural gender, the grammaticality effect interacted with gender class and emotionality, this effect only emerging in unpleasant stimuli for feminine nouns. Our results reveal that it is possible to find emotional effects at the behavioural level in an intrinsically grammatical task. Yet, these effects depend on gender properties like the type of gender and the gender class.

So far but yet so near: Examining the buffering effect of perceived social support on the psychological impact of Spanish lockdown.

The main objective of this study was to examine the moderating or buffering effect of social support (SS) perceived by university students on the psychological impact of lockdown on mental health. Specifically, a total of 826 participants (622 women) completed an online survey that included standardized measures of anxiety (Generalised Anxiety Disorder-7), depression (Patient Health Questionnaire-9), and irritability (Brief Irritability Test), as well as measures of stressors, perceived SS, and self-perceived change in mental health. The results of hierarchical regression analyses suggest that SS contributes toward attenuating the negative impact of academic stressors, general overload, and interpersonal conflict on the indicators of psychological well-being; however, moderation analysis only confirms the buffering effect for symptoms of anxiety. In conclusion, it is suggested that SS networks need to be strengthened as a basic means of protecting health and well-being during unexpected disasters.

Unraveling the Mystery About the Negative Valence Bias: Does Arousal Account for Processing Differences in Unpleasant Words?

Many studies have found that the emotional content of words affects visual word recognition. However, most of them have only considered affective valence, finding inconsistencies regarding the direction of the effects, especially in unpleasant words. Recent studies suggest that arousal might explain why not all unpleasant words elicit the same behavior. The aim of the present research was to study the role of arousal in unpleasant word recognition. To do that, we carried out an ERP experiment in which participants performed a lexical decision task that included unpleasant words which could vary across three levels of arousal (intermediate, high, and very high) and words which were neutral in valence and had an intermediate level of arousal. Results showed that, within unpleasant words, those intermediate in arousal evoked smaller LPC amplitudes than words that were high or very high in arousal, indicating that arousal affects unpleasant word recognition. Critically, arousal determined whether the effect of negative valence was found or not. When arousal was not matched between unpleasant and neutral valenced words, the effect of emotionality was weak in the behavioral data and absent in the ERP data. However, when arousal was intermediate in both unpleasant and neutral valenced words, larger EPN amplitudes were reported for the former, pointing to an early allocation of attention. Interestingly, these unpleasant words which had an intermediate level of arousal showed a subsequent inhibitory effect in that they evoked smaller LPC amplitudes and led to slower reaction times and more errors than neutral words. Our results highlight the relevance that the arousal level has for the study of negative valence effects in word recognition.

A Study on the Psychological Wound of COVID-19 in University Students.

An increasing number of studies have addressed the psychological impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the general population. Nevertheless, far less is known about the impact on specific populations such as university students, whose psychological vulnerability has been shown in previous research. This study sought to examine different indicators of mental health in university students during the Spanish lockdown; we also analyzed the main sources of stress perceived by students in relation to the COVID-19 crisis, and the coping strategies adopted when faced with the situation. Data was collected from 932 students (704 women) through a web-based platform. Measures of anxiety (i.e., GAD-7), depression (PHQ-9), irritability, and self-perceived change in mental health were administered, as well as ad hoc measures of stressors and coping strategies. Results indicated that students experienced considerable psychological problems during the confinement, with higher rates of emotional difficulties in women and undergraduate students than in men and postgraduates, respectively. Psychological distress was mainly related to several specific domains of stressors, as perceived by the participants: academic future, task overload, worsening of interpersonal conflicts, and restrictions in pleasant social contact; and far less related to the spread of the disease and its consequences for physical health. As regards coping strategies, both reframing skills and daily routines were shown to be the most effective. A path-analysis model integrating stressors, coping, and mental health revealed that coping strategies partially mediated the effect of stressors on psychological health. In general, results suggest that students' psychological health was substantially affected by the COVID-19 situation and that the academic and relational changes were the most notable sources of stress. This study reinforces the need to monitor and promote mental health in university students to boost resilience in times of crisis. Our results on effective coping strategies may inform preventive programs aimed at helping students to deal with challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic.