Individual differences in emoji comprehension: Gender, age, and culture.

Emoji are an important substitute for non-verbal cues (such as facial expressions) in online written communication. So far, however, little is known about individual differences regarding how they are perceived. In the current study, we examined the influence of gender, age, and culture on emoji comprehension. Specifically, a sample of 523 participants across the UK and China completed an emoji classification task. In this task, they were presented with a series of emoji, each representing one of six facial emotional expressions, across four commonly used platforms (Apple, Android, WeChat, and Windows). Their task was to choose from one of six labels (happy, sad, angry, surprised, fearful, disgusted) which emotion was represented by each emoji. Results showed that all factors (age, gender, and culture) had a significant impact on how emojis were classified by participants. This has important implications when considering emoji use, for example, conversation with partners from different cultures.

Individual differences in sarcasm interpretation and use: Evidence from the UK and China.

Sarcasm is commonly used in everyday language; however, little is currently known about cultural and individual differences in sarcasm interpretation and use, particularly across Western and Eastern cultures. To address these gaps in the literature, the present study investigated individual differences in sarcasm interpretation and use in the UK and China. Participants first rated literal and sarcastic comments regarding degree of perceived sarcasm, aggression, amusement, and politeness. They then completed tasks which assessed their theory of mind (ToM) ability, perspective taking ability, and sarcasm use tendency. The results showed that UK participants were more sarcastic than Chinese participants. In terms of interpretation, UK participants rated sarcasm as being more amusing and polite than literal criticism, whereas the Chinese data showed that sarcasm was rated as being more amusing but also more aggressive than literal criticism. ToM ability and perspective taking ability positively predicted sarcasm perception in both cultural groups, while the effects of ToM on other rating dimensions varied across cultures. Sarcasm use tendency negatively predicted perception of sarcasm and aggression in UK participants, whereas the opposite was found for Chinese participants. The decomposition of individual difference effects showed that different facets of interpretation and socio-emotional impact of sarcasm are differentially associated with different cultural and individual differences factors. From this, we propose that both cultural and individual differences factors modulate sarcasm interpretation and use: Participants from different cultures and with different traits may view sarcasm differently, which, in turn, affects their interpretation and use of sarcastic language. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Emoji Identification and Emoji Effects on Sentence Emotionality in ASD-Diagnosed Adults and Neurotypical Controls.

We investigated ASD-diagnosed adults' and neurotypical (NT) controls' processing of emoji and emoji influence on the emotionality of otherwise-neutral sentences. Study 1 participants categorised emoji representing the six basic emotions using a fixed-set of emotional adjectives. Results showed that ASD-diagnosed participants' classifications of fearful, sad, and surprised emoji were more diverse and less 'typical' than NT controls' responses. Study 2 participants read emotionally-neutral sentences; half paired with sentence-final happy emoji, half with sad emoji. Participants rated sentence + emoji stimuli for emotional valence. ASD-diagnosed and NT participants rated sentences + happy emoji as equally-positive, however, ASD-diagnosed participants rated sentences + sad emoji as more-negative than NT participants. We must acknowledge differential perceptions and effects of emoji, and emoji-text inter-relationships, when working with neurodiverse stakeholders.

Syntactic prediction during self-paced reading is age invariant.

Controversy exists as to whether, compared to young adults, older adults are more, equally or less likely to make linguistic predictions while reading. While previous studies have examined age effects on the prediction of upcoming words, the prediction of upcoming syntactic structures has been largely unexplored. We compared the benefit that young and older readers gain when the syntactic structure is made predictable, as well as potential age differences in the costs involved in making predictions. In a self-paced reading study, 60 young and 60 older adults read sentences in which noun-phrase coordination (e.g. large pizza or tasty calzone) is made predictable through the inclusion of the word either earlier in the sentence. Results showed a benefit of the presence of either in the second half of the coordination phrase, and a cost of the presence of either in the first half. We observed no age differences in the benefit or costs of making these predictions; Bayes factor analyses offered strong evidence that these effects are age invariant. Together, these findings suggest that both older and younger adults make similar strength syntactic predictions with a similar level of difficulty. We relate this age invariance in syntactic prediction to specific aspects of the ageing process.

No evidence of word-level uncertainty in younger and older adults in self-paced reading.

In a self-paced reading study, we investigated whether older adults maintain a greater level of uncertainty about the identity of words in a sentence than younger adults, potentially due to deficits in visuo-perceptual processing of high-spatial frequencies associated with normal aging. In the experiment, 60 older adults and 60 younger adults read sentences in which an early preposition was either perceptually confusable with another word (at; confusable with as) or not (toward), and in which the reading of a subsequent ambiguous verb (e.g., tossed) should be affected by the confusability of the preposition, while the reading of an unambiguous verb (e.g., thrown) should not be. This design replicated that of an earlier study conducted by Levy et al. (2009) that found evidence in favour of participants maintaining uncertainty about the confusable preposition in go-past times during natural reading. However, in our study, there was no evidence that either younger or older adults maintained uncertainty about the identity of the perceptually confusable preposition, such that there was no interaction between the preposition's form and subsequent verb ambiguity in self-paced reading times, although we did observe a main effect of verb ambiguity. This represents a failure to replicate the effect observed by Levy et al. when using a different experimental paradigm, and we consider potential causes of our findings at both a methodological and theoretical level.

Online representations of non-canonical sentences are more than good-enough.

Proponents of good-enough processing suggest that readers often (mis)interpret certain sentences using fast-and-frugal heuristics, such that for non-canonical sentences (e.g., The dog was bitten by the man) people confuse the thematic roles of the nouns. We tested this theory by examining the effect of sentence canonicality on the reading of a follow-up sentence. In a self-paced reading study, 60 young and 60 older adults read an implausible sentence in either canonical (e.g., It was the peasant that executed the king) or non-canonical form (e.g., It was the king that was executed by the peasant), followed by a sentence that was implausible given a good-enough misinterpretation of the first sentence (e.g., Afterwards, the peasant rode back to the countryside) or a sentence that was implausible given a correct interpretation of the first sentence (e.g., Afterwards, the king rode back to his castle). We hypothesised that if non-canonical sentences are systematically misinterpreted, then sentence canonicality would differentially affect the reading of the two different follow-up types. Our data suggested that participants derived the same interpretations for canonical and non-canonical sentences, with no modulating effect of age group. Our findings suggest that readers do not derive an incorrect interpretation of non-canonical sentences during initial parsing, consistent with theories of misinterpretation effects that instead attribute these effects to post-interpretative processes.

An eye-tracking study examining the relationship between males' eating disorder symptomatology, body mass index, and expectations about character behaviour in text.

Eating disorder prevalence is increasing in males, perhaps more rapidly than in females. Theorists have proposed that cognitive biases are important factors underpinning disordered eating, especially those related to food, body, and perfectionism. We investigated these factors in relation to males' eating disorder symptomatology in the general population by using eye-tracking during reading as a novel and implicit measure. 180 males' eye movements were monitored while they read scenarios (third-person in Experiment 1 (n = 90, 18-38(Mage = 21.50, SD = 3.65)); second-person in Experiment 2 (n = 90, 18-35(Mage = 20.50, SD = 2.22))) describing characters' emotional responses (e.g. upset) to food-, body image-, and perfectionism-related events. Participants' eating disorder symptomatology was then assessed, and body mass index (BMI) was calculated. Results showed processing of characters' emotional responses (detected via eye-tracking) to body- and perfectionism-related events for third-person scenarios was related to eating disorder symptomatology. Processing of characters' emotional responses to body-related events for second-person scenarios was related to males' BMI. The moment-to-moment processing of characters' emotional responses to food-related scenarios was not related to eating disorder symptomatology or BMI. Findings support theories that include body- and perfectionism-related cognitive biases as underlying mechanisms of eating disorder symptomatology and the use of implicit measures of cognitive processes underlying males' eating disorder symptomatology.

Irony as a Test of the Presupposition-Denial Account: An ERP Study.

According to the Presupposition-Denial Account, complement set reference arises when focus is on the shortfall between the amount conveyed by a natural language quantifier and a larger, expected amount. Negative quantifiers imply a shortfall, through the denial of a presupposition, whereas positive quantifiers do not. An exception may be provided by irony. One function of irony is to highlight, through indirect negation, the shortfall between what is expected/desired, and what is observed. Thus, a positive quantifier used ironically should also lead to a shortfall and license complement set reference. Using ERPs, we examined whether reference to the complement set is more felicitous following a positive quantifier used ironically than one used non-ironically. ERPs during reading showed a smaller N400 for complement set reference following an ironic compared to a non-ironic context. The shortfall generated thorough irony is sufficient to allow focus on the complement set, supporting the Presupposition-Denial Account.

Examining the influence of perspective and prosody on expected emotional responses to irony: Evidence from event-related brain potentials.

Ironic language is typically more difficult to process and interpret than a literal equivalent, hence is assumed to serve several social and emotional functions not achieved by literal communication (such as politeness or introducing humor). Several factors may influence emotional responses to irony, such as the perspective from which the utterance is encountered (e.g., speaker vs. target) and the tone of voice (prosody) used. To examine these issues, we conducted two event-related brain potential (ERP) studies in which participants listened to scenarios describing emotional responses to either literal criticism or ironic criticism. Ironic criticism was delivered with either natural or ironic prosody. Scenarios either described an emotional response the speaker expected to elicit from the target (speaker perspective), or the target's actual emotional response (target perspective). Expected or actual emotional responses were described as either "amused" (Experiment 1) or "hurt" (Experiment 2). ERPs were calculated time-locked to the end of the ironic or literal statements, and to the audio presentation of the critical emotion words. Results showed a significant effect of perspective for amused conditions, reflected by a larger late posterior positivity for the target than speaker conditions, indicating amused responses are more expected from speaker than target perspective. This effect was not seen for hurt conditions, suggesting these are equally expected from target and speaker perspectives. The data also revealed a more negative-going ERP waveform specifically for ironic criticism delivered with ironic prosody, reflecting prosodic processing. This suggests prosody may be able to speed the identification of irony. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

What is the relationship between body mass index and eating disorder symptomatology in professional female fashion models?

Low body mass index (BMI<18/18.5) is utilized as a mandated cutoff for professional fashion model employment, based on assumptions that low BMI indicates eating disorder pathology. No previous studies have examined the association between experimenter-measured BMI and eating disorder symptomatology in professional fashion models. We measured BMI and Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) responses in United Kingdom (UK) professional fashion models, and nonmodels. Characteristics were compared using robust standardized mean difference (rSMD) obtained via probability of superiority. Associations between BMI and eating disorder symptomatology were examined using robust regression, controlling for age. Models exhibited lower BMI but higher fat-percentage and muscle mass. On the EDE-Q, models had higher Restraint, Global, Eating, and Weight Concerns, and similar Shape Concern scores compared to nonmodels. BMI was positively associated with eating disorder symptoms in both groups, and all but one of the eight models with clinically significant EDE-Q level had ≥18.5 measured BMI. Lower BMI was not indicative of worse eating disorder symptomatology in models or nonmodels. Thus, using a low BMI cutoff (<18.5) may not be an appropriate single index of health for detecting elevated eating disorder symptoms in models. Different policies to protect models' health should be considered.

Development and validation of new figural scales for female body dissatisfaction assessment on two dimensions: thin-ideal and muscularity-ideal.

BACKGROUND: Body dissatisfaction influences women's mental and physical health. To date, most research has focused on body dissatisfaction in relation to the 'thin-ideal'. Thus, the association between body dissatisfaction, eating disorder symptomatology and muscularity-ideal in women is less clear. Lack of understanding is underpinned by the lack of reliable and valid muscularity-related assessments for women. To address this need, we developed, tested and re-tested two new body dissatisfaction scales: The Female Body Scale (FBS; adiposity dimension) and Female Fit Body Scale (FFITBS; muscularity dimension). METHODS: One hundred and fifty-two women in the United Kingdom rated which body figure best represented their current and ideal body, completed the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q 6.0), and their body composition was measured. During re-test, the EDE-Q 6.0 and Drive for Muscularity Scale (DMS) were completed. RESULTS: Both the FBS and the FFITBS were found to be valid and reliable, and distinct types of body dissatisfaction were identified. Higher EDE-Q scores corresponded with greater body dissatisfaction scores on both the FBS and FFITBS. Thin-ideal (FBS) and larger/muscularity-ideal (FFITBS) body dissatisfaction predicted higher scores on the DMS. The muscularity scale (FFITBS) uniquely revealed that 28% of participants indicated body dissatisfaction toward the larger-muscularity-ideal. CONCLUSIONS: Results reveal distinct dimensions of body dissatisfaction. These new, validated scales may be utilized to quickly identify eating disorder risk in women as a preventative assessment for clinicians and inform female-focused body-image and eating disorder research.

Examining the role of context in written sarcasm comprehension: Evidence from eye-tracking during reading.

This article addresses a current theoretical debate between modular and interactive accounts of sarcasm processing, by investigating the role of context (specifically, knowing that a character has been sarcastic before) in the comprehension of a sarcastic remark. An eye-tracking experiment was conducted in which participants were asked to read texts that introduced a character as being either sarcastic or not and ended in either a literal or an unfamiliar sarcastic remark. The results indicated that when the character was previously literal, a subsequent sarcastic remark was more difficult to process than its literal counterpart. However, when the context was supportive of the sarcastic interpretation (i.e., the character was known to be sarcastic), subsequent sarcastic remarks were as easy to read as literal equivalents, which would support the predictions of interactive accounts. Importantly, this effect was not preceded by a main effect of literality, which constitutes evidence against the predictions of modular accounts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The role of emoticons in sarcasm comprehension in younger and older adults: Evidence from an eye-tracking experiment.

We present an eye-tracking experiment examining moment-to-moment processes underlying the comprehension of emoticons. Younger (18-30) and older (65+) participants had their eye movements recorded while reading scenarios containing comments that were ambiguous between literal or sarcastic interpretations (e.g., But you're so quick though). Comments were accompanied by wink emoticons or full stops. Results showed that participants read earlier parts of the wink scenarios faster than those with full stops, but then spent more time reading the text surrounding the emoticon. Thus, readers moved more quickly to the end of the text when there was a device that may aid interpretation but then spent more time processing the conflict between the superficially positive nature of the comment and the tone implied by the emoticon. Interestingly, the wink increased the likelihood of a sarcastic interpretation in younger adults only, suggesting that perceiver-related factors play an important role in emoticon interpretation.

Emotional Processing of Ironic Versus Literal Criticism in Autistic and Nonautistic Adults: Evidence From Eye-Tracking.

Typically developing adults are able to keep track of story characters' emotional states online while reading. Filik et al. showed that initially, participants expected the victim to be more hurt by ironic comments than literal, but later considered them less hurtful; ironic comments were regarded as more amusing. We examined these processes in autistic adults, since previous research has demonstrated socio-emotional difficulties among autistic people, which may lead to problems processing irony and its related emotional processes despite an intact ability to integrate language in context. We recorded eye movements from autistic and nonautistic adults while they read narratives in which a character (the victim) was either criticized in an ironic or a literal manner by another character (the protagonist). A target sentence then either described the victim as feeling hurt/amused by the comment, or the protagonist as having intended to hurt/amused the victim by making the comment. Results from the nonautistic adults broadly replicated the key findings from Filik et al., supporting the two-stage account. Importantly, the autistic adults did not show comparable two-stage processing of ironic language; they did not differentiate between the emotional responses for victims or protagonists following ironic versus literal criticism. These findings suggest that autistic people experience a specific difficulty taking into account other peoples' communicative intentions (i.e., infer their mental state) to appropriately anticipate emotional responses to an ironic comment. We discuss how these difficulties might link to atypical socio-emotional processing in autism, and the ability to maintain successful real-life social interactions. Autism Res 2020, 13: 563-578. © 2020 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: In line with research showing that autistic people have difficulties considering others' mental states, we found autistic adults were impaired at distinguishing the emotions and intentions experienced by story characters who received sarcastic comments (e.g., "That was fantastic parking" in a context where someone's parking was particularly bad). These findings highlight the difficulties that autistic people experience taking into account other peoples' intentions during communication to appropriately anticipate their emotional responses. © 2020 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

A systematic and methodological review of attentional biases in eating disorders: Food, body, and perfectionism.

OBJECTIVE: The current systematic and methodological review aimed to critically review existing literature utilizing implicit processing, or automatic approach- and/or avoidance-related attentional biases between eating disorder (ED) and nonclinical samples, which (a) highlights how psychophysiological methods advance knowledge of ED implicit bias; (b) explains how findings fit into transdiagnostic versus disorder-specific ED frameworks; and (c) suggests how research can address perfectionism-related ED biases. METHOD: Three databases were systematically searched to identify studies: PubMed, Scopus, and PsychInfo electronic databases. Peer-reviewed studies of 18- to 39-year-olds with both clinical ED and healthy samples assessing visual attentional biases using pictorial and/or linguistic stimuli related to food, body, and/or perfectionism were included. RESULTS: Forty-six studies were included. While behavioral results were often similar across ED diagnoses, studies incorporating psychophysiological measures often revealed disease-specific attentional biases. Specifically, women with bulimia nervosa (BN) tend to approach food and other body types, whereas women with anorexia nervosa (AN) tend to avoid food as well as overweight bodies. CONCLUSIONS: Further integration of psychophysiological and behavioral methods may identify subtle processing variations in ED, which may guide prevention strategies and interventions, and provide important clinical implications. Few implicit bias studies include male participants, investigate binge-eating disorder, or evaluate perfectionism-relevant stimuli, despite the fact that perfectionism is implicated in models of ED.

What is the difference between irony and sarcasm? An fMRI study.

Verbal irony is a figure of speech that communicates the opposite of what is said, while sarcasm is a form of irony that is directed at a person, with the intent to criticise. The current study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with the aim of mapping the neural networks involved in the processing of sarcastic and non-sarcastic irony. Participants read short texts describing an interaction between two characters, which ended in either a literal, sarcastic, or non-sarcastic ironic comment. Results showed that the mentalising network (mPFC) and semantic network (IFG) were more activated for non-sarcastic irony than for literal controls. This would suggest that interpreting this kind of language involves understanding that the speaker does not mean what they literally say, as well as processes involved in conflict detection and resolution. Sarcastic irony recruited more of the semantic network, as well as areas associated with humour appreciation and subcortical structures, indicating that more complex neural mechanisms underlie the comprehension of sarcastic versus non-sarcastic irony.

Eating disorder symptomatology and body mass index are associated with readers' expectations about character behavior: Evidence from eye-tracking during reading.

OBJECTIVE: Many theories have been put forward suggesting key factors underlying the development and maintenance of eating disorders, such as: unhealthy food-related cognitive biases, negative body attitude, and perfectionism; however, underlying cognitive processes associated with eating disorder symptomatology remain unclear. We used eye-tracking during reading as a novel implicit measure of how these factors may relate to eating disorder symptomatology. METHOD: In two experiments, we monitored women's eye movements while they read texts in which the characters' emotional responses to food-, body image-, and perfectionism-related scenarios were described. Participants' eating disorder symptomatology was then assessed. RESULTS: Both studies suggest that moment-to-moment processing of characters' emotional responses to perfectionism-, and to a lesser extent, body image-related information was associated with participants' eating disorder symptomatology, thus supporting theories in which these factors are key to developing and maintaining eating disorders. Interestingly, the moment-to-moment processing of characters' emotional responses to food-related scenarios was not related to eating disorder symptomatology. DISCUSSION: These findings provide novel insights into cognitive processes underlying eating disorder symptomatology, as well as demonstrating the utility of more natural implicit measures.

Electrophysiological dynamics of Chinese phonology during visual word recognition in Chinese-English bilinguals.

Silent word reading leads to the activation of orthographic (spelling), semantic (meaning), as well as phonological (sound) information. For bilinguals, native language information can also be activated automatically when they read words in their second language. For example, when Chinese-English bilinguals read words in their second language (English), the phonology of the Chinese translations is automatically activated. Chinese phonology, however, consists of consonants and vowels (segmental) and tonal information. To what extent these two aspects of Chinese phonology are activated is yet unclear. Here, we used behavioural measures, event-related potentials and oscillatory EEG to investigate Chinese segmental and tonal activation during word recognition. Evidence of Chinese segmental activation was found when bilinguals read English words (faster responses, reduced N400, gamma-band power reduction) and when they read Chinese words (increased LPC, gamma-band power reduction). In contrast, evidence for Chinese tonal activation was only found when bilinguals read Chinese words (gamma-band power increase). Together, our converging behavioural and electrophysiological evidence indicates that Chinese segmental information is activated during English word reading, whereas both segmental and tonal information are activated during Chinese word reading. Importantly, gamma-band oscillations are modulated differently by tonal and segmental activation, suggesting independent processing of Chinese tones and segments.

Task-dependent evaluative processing of moral and emotional content during comprehension: An ERP study.

Recently, we showed that when participants passively read about moral transgressions (e.g., adultery), they implicitly engage in the evaluative (good-bad) categorization of incoming information, as indicated by a larger event-related brain potential (ERP) positivity to immoral than to moral scenarios (Leuthold, Kunkel, Mackenzie, & Filik in Social, Cognitive, and Affective Neuroscience, 10, 1021-1029, 2015). Behavioral and neuroimaging studies indicated that explicit moral tasks prioritize the semantic-cognitive analysis of incoming information but that implicit tasks, as used in Leuthold et al. (Social, Cognitive, and Affective Neuroscience, 10, 1021-1029, 2015), favor their affective processing. Therefore, it is unclear whether an affective categorization process is also involved when participants perform explicit moral judgments. Thus, in two experiments, we used similarly constructed morality and emotion materials for which their moral and emotional content had to be inferred from the context. Target sentences from negative vs. neutral emotional scenarios and from moral vs. immoral scenarios were presented using rapid serial visual presentation. In Experiment 1, participants made moral judgments for moral materials and emotional judgments for emotion materials. Negative compared to neutral emotional scenarios elicited a larger posterior ERP positivity (LPP) about 200 ms after critical word onset, whereas immoral compared to moral scenarios elicited a larger anterior negativity (500-700 ms). In Experiment 2, where the same emotional judgment to both types of materials was required, a larger LPP was triggered for both types of materials. These results accord with the view that morality scenarios trigger a semantic-cognitive analysis when participants explicitly judge the moral content of incoming linguistic information but an affective evaluation when judging their emotional content.

New Body Scales Reveal Body Dissatisfaction, Thin-Ideal, and Muscularity-Ideal in Males.

The aim of the current study was to develop, test, and retest two new male body dissatisfaction scales: The Male Body Scale (MBS; consisting of emaciated to obese figures) and the Male Fit Body Scale (MFBS; consisting of emaciated to muscular figures). These scales were compared to the two most commonly used visually based indices of body dissatisfaction (Stunkard Figure Rating Scale, SFRS; and Somatomorphic Matrix, SM). Male participants rated which body figure on each scale most represented their current figure, then their ideal figure, and then rated which one of the three scales (MBS, MFBS, and SFRS) best represented their current and ideal body overall. Finally, they completed the Drive for Muscularity Scale (DMS), the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q 6.0), and their actual body composition was calculated. This was followed by a retest and manipulation check 2 to 6 weeks later. Participants' actual body mass index, fat- and muscularity-percentage were all highly related to their current body figure choice, and both new scales were consistently valid and more reliable between test and retest than the SFRS and SM body dissatisfaction scores. Importantly, each scale was sensitive to different types of body dissatisfaction within males. Specifically, the MBS revealed that males' desire for the thin-ideal significantly corresponded to higher eating disorder tendencies as identified by EDE-Q 6.0 scores, while the MFBS revealed much higher body dissatisfaction toward the larger, muscularity-ideal, predicting higher drive for muscularity as identified by DMS scores. Results validated the new scales, and inform male-focused eating disorder research.